July 8, 2002	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 26,1423

LONDON, July 7: Campaigners against the arms trade accused Britain of hypocrisy on Sunday after reports that London was violating its own guidelines for arms exports by selling fighter jet components to Israel via the United States.

The Observer newspaper said Britain, committed to an “ethical” foreign policy preventing sales of arms for external aggression or internal repression, would allow the equipment to leave Britain for use in F-16 jets already sold to Israel.

The paper quoted a senior government figure as saying there was “a ‘clear understanding’ the fighter planes could be used for aggressive acts against the occupied territories”.

Israel has on several occasions fired missiles from F-16s against Palestinian targets.

Officials at Britain’s foreign, trade and defence ministries declined to comment on the reported sale, which involves navigation and targeting equipment for the jets which the paper said are being built in the United States.

But they admitted the increasingly global nature of arms production made restrictions harder to enforce.

Anti-arms trade activists accused the government of allowing the interests of Britain’s multi-billion pound arms export industry to ride roughshod over ethical concerns.

“They have been arming India and Pakistan, even while they stood on the brink of nuclear war, and now they are choosing to contribute directly to death and destruction in the Middle East,” said Sam Perlo-Freeman of Campaign Against Arms Trade.

“They are clearly without shame, with the interests of the arms manufacturers being all.”

Britain said in April it had tightened up controls on exports to Israel after it discovered parts of British-built tanks had been used in armoured personnel carriers deployed in the occupied territories.

Government officials said Foreign Secretary Jack Straw would set out to parliament later this week the government’s policy on sales of arms assembled in more than one country.

“It’s not a new policy. It’s guidance based on the existing criteria to take account of multinational assembly lines for major defence contracts,” a spokesman said.

Any relaxation in the guidelines is likely to trigger widespread criticism in parliament and from within Prime Minister Tony Blair’s centre-left Labour Party.

Left-wing Labour MP Alice Mahon warned there would be “massive objections” to any easing of the rules and Liberal Democrat Menzies Campbell said it would be a “further nail in the coffin of a foreign policy with an ethical dimension.”

—Reuters