Japan, for instance, makes it comparatively straightforward to export dual-use applied sciences to the US and Europe, and vice versa. As a result of they’re acknowledged as trusted international locations beneath Japanese export regulation, corporations in these states are usually 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 Common 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, truly doing enterprise with Israeli protection companies.
“FANUC sells its robots and gives upkeep and inspection providers to Israeli army corporations corresponding to Elbit Techniques,” Imano claimed.
FANUC has denied this cost. “Once we promote merchandise to Israel, we stock out the mandatory transaction screening in accordance with Japan’s International Trade and International Commerce Act, affirm the person’s enterprise actions and meant use, and don’t promote to Israel if the merchandise are for army use,” the corporate wrote to HuffPost.
The corporate added that, after reviewing their data of the previous 5 years, “we’ve got not offered any merchandise for army use to the Israeli corporations Elbit Techniques, IAI, BSEL, Rosenshine Plast, or AMI from our firm or our European subsidiary. We’ve additionally not offered any merchandise for army use to different Israeli corporations from our firm or our European subsidiary.” The corporate recognized one occasion the place considered one of their robotic arms had been offered to an Israeli firm that produces army {hardware} “after confirming that the machine was for use for civilian medical functions.”
On the similar time, the corporate admitted that after they promote by intermediaries, of which Israel has a number of, they don’t seem to be at all times in a position to assure “who the ultimate buyer is.”
There’s, nonetheless, ample proof that means FANUC arms have made their means into the Israel protection manufacturing sector. Multiple job listings posted by Elbit Techniques, the first home provider of the Israel Protection Forces, checklist “information of FANUC … controls” as both a bonus to job candidates or a requirement. One such job listing, from June, comes from Elbit Cyclone, the division that gained a contract to provide fuselage elements for the F-35 fighter jet. In January, Israel’s Ministry of Protection printed a video exhibiting a FANUC robotic arm at an Elbit manufacturing unit, handling munitions.
One other Israeli firm, Guess Shemesh Engines (BSEL), greater than a decade in the past created marketing videos and uploaded photographs 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 quite than army functions. Guess Shemesh counts the Israeli Air Power as a serious shopper.
