Japan, for instance, makes it comparatively simple to export dual-use applied sciences to america and Europe, and vice versa. As a result of they’re acknowledged as trusted international locations beneath Japanese export regulation, firms in these states are typically free to make use of Japanese dual-use know-how to supply 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 firms 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 companies.
“FANUC sells its robots and offers upkeep and inspection providers to Israeli navy firms corresponding to Elbit Programs,” 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 Overseas Trade and Overseas Commerce Act, affirm the person’s enterprise actions and supposed 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, “now we have not offered any merchandise for navy use to the Israeli firms Elbit Programs, IAI, BSEL, Rosenshine Plast, or AMI from our firm or our European subsidiary. Now we have additionally not offered any merchandise for navy use to different Israeli firms from our firm or our European subsidiary.” The corporate recognized one occasion the place certainly one of their robotic arms had been offered 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 once they promote via 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 implies FANUC arms have made their approach into the Israel protection manufacturing sector. Multiple job listings posted by Elbit Programs, 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 listing, from June, comes from Elbit Cyclone, the division that received a contract to supply fuselage parts for the F-35 fighter jet. In January, Israel’s Ministry of Protection revealed a video displaying a FANUC robotic arm at an Elbit manufacturing facility, 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 moderately than navy functions. Guess Shemesh counts the Israeli Air Power as a significant consumer.