Japan, for instance, makes it comparatively straightforward to export dual-use applied sciences to the USA and Europe, and vice versa. As a result of they’re acknowledged as trusted international locations beneath Japanese export legislation, corporations in these states are typically free to make use of Japanese dual-use expertise to provide arms—and to, in flip, export these arms to different states (topic to their very own export controls).
This, itself, has drawn the BDS activists’ ire: They need FANUC to finish its relationship with American protection contractors like Normal Dynamics and Lockheed Martin, which promote appreciable superior weaponry to Israel. “We demand that such enterprise relationships be instantly terminated and that the 2 corporations by no means do enterprise with one another once more,” Imano stated in June. However the activists go additional, arguing that FANUC is, regardless of what it says publicly, really doing enterprise with Israeli protection corporations.
“FANUC sells its robots and offers upkeep and inspection providers to Israeli navy corporations reminiscent of Elbit Techniques,” Imano claimed.
FANUC has denied this cost. “Once we promote merchandise to Israel, we feature out the required transaction screening in accordance with Japan’s Overseas Alternate and Overseas Commerce Act, verify the person’s enterprise actions and meant use, and don’t promote to Israel if the merchandise are for navy use,” the corporate wrote to HuffPost.
The corporate added that, after reviewing their information of the previous 5 years, “we’ve got not bought any merchandise for navy use to the Israeli corporations Elbit Techniques, IAI, BSEL, Rosenshine Plast, or AMI from our firm or our European subsidiary. We now have additionally not bought any merchandise for navy use to different Israeli corporations from our firm or our European subsidiary.” The corporate recognized one occasion the place one among their robotic arms had been bought to an Israeli firm that produces navy {hardware} “after confirming that the machine was for use for civilian medical functions.”
On the identical time, the corporate admitted that after they promote by way of intermediaries, of which Israel has a number of, they don’t seem to be all the time in a position to assure “who the ultimate buyer is.”
There may be, nonetheless, ample proof that implies FANUC arms have made their means into the Israel protection manufacturing sector. A number of job listings posted by Elbit Techniques, the first home provider of the Israel Protection Forces, checklist “data of FANUC … controls” as both a bonus to job candidates or a requirement. One such job itemizing, from June, comes from Elbit Cyclone, the division that received a contract to provide fuselage elements for the F-35 fighter jet. In January, Israel’s Ministry of Protection revealed a video exhibiting a FANUC robotic arm at an Elbit manufacturing facility, dealing with munitions.
One other Israeli firm, Guess Shemesh Engines (BSEL), greater than a decade in the past created advertising movies and uploaded pictures to their firm web site that includes the FANUC robotic arms. The CV of a former worker suggests the corporate used FANUC robotics to assemble plane engines, which can be used for civilian fairly than navy functions. Guess Shemesh counts the Israeli Air Drive as a significant consumer.