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U.K. Rejects Arms Embargo Against Israel
LONDON, Aug 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The British government has rejected growing calls to impose a ban on weapons exported to Israel reportedly being used to repress Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, news agencies reported.
British arms sales to Israel are "miniscule" and "completely insignificant", Junior Foreign Office Minister Ben Bradshaw insisted. "Basically America arms Israel," he said, quoted by the official Iranian news agency IRNA.
Calls for a U.K. embargo have come from the Liberal Democrats, the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT), the Palestinian Authority and even Amnesty International, following revelations that the government has approved 86 licenses for military exports to Israel this year.
But Bradshaw told BBC radio Thursday that there was "no evidence [that] any British equipment is being used" to kill Palestinians.
"We take on trust the assurance the Israelis gave us" concerning the fact that no British equipment is being used for internal repression, he said.
But, he added his government would be "extremely concerned if those assurances are broken."
The BBC reported that over £12 million ($17 million) worth of defense equipment was licensed for export to Israel last year. The sales included components for combat helicopters, aircraft, anti-missile systems and parts vital for electronic warfare.
Bradshaw said that British diplomats on the ground were carrying out a "dangerous job" in checking and following up assurances that Israel was not using U.K. equipment in the occupied Palestinian territories.
CAAT, which describes the sales as the "U.K.'s forgotten arms exports," says that with so many military parts supplied to Israel, it would "take an incredibly industrious British military attaché to verify Israel's guarantee," IRNA reported.
But, even in the unlikely situation that U.K. exports play no part in suppressing Palestinian uprisings, the U.K. has an "ethical duty" to impose an embargo, the campaign group said in its latest newsletter.
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