Green Euro-MP Demands Boycott On All Arms Deals With Israel
11 October 2006 - The Government is facing calls to boycott all arms deals with Israel after it emerged that weapons used illegally to target civilians in Gaza and Lebanon are being made in Britain.
Green Party Euro-MP Caroline Lucas has joined Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) in condemning the trade, which has more than doubled in size in the last year.
Dr Lucas, MEP for South-East England, said: “With women and children dying by the score, and millions of civilians displaced by the terror of war, the UK must try to cut off the supply of weapons to the region.”
In 2005 the UK government licensed the sale of £22.5m worth of arms to Israel , more than twice the amount in 2004, and spent millions of pounds on ‘battle-tested’ arms from Israeli companies.
UK arms companies supply bombs, rockets, missiles and mines to Israel , as well as key parts for Israel ’s Apache combat helicopters and F-16 fighter jets. These have been deployed against civilian populations in southern Lebanon and Gaza , as well as to maintain the illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories
Dr Lucas said: “As long as the UK fails to condemn Israel for its breaches of human rights law, the Geneva Conventions, UN Security Council resolutions and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, our government is fuelling the terror endured daily by millions across the region.
“We must stop arming Israel – and stop purchasing Israeli military equipment too. I hope the government will adopt an immediate embargo, and that other governments, particularly in the EU, will do so too.”
Dr Lucas, who is a member of the European Parliament’s permanent delegation to the occupied Palestinian territories and co-founder and co-president of the Parliament’s cross-party Peace initiatives group, added: “At EU level we should suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which gives preferential access to EU markets for Israeli exporters – until Israel demonstrates its commitment to the international rule of law.
“With its illegal nuclear arsenal, its illegal invasion and annexation of Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian territory, and with its ‘apartheid wall’, condemned last year by the International Court of Justice, Israel is clearly a rogue state – and the UK just shouldn’t be in the business of selling it more arms to turn on terrorised civilians.”
ENDS
