The Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, assures that weapons are no longer purchased from Israel. But he recognizes that there are still deals with the Israeli arms industry for the repair of parts, according to the response addressed to the Minister of Social Rights, Pablo Bustinduy, in a letter advanced by El País and later confirmed by elDiario.es.
“No weapons have been sold or acquired to the State of Israel since October 7,” Robles tells Bustinduy, without specifying whether this affects all companies or only public ones: “The temporary export licenses pending with Israel do not correspond to weapons but to spare parts, and at this moment [no dice desde cuándo] “They are paralyzed.”
In the absence of greater specificity of Robles’ statement that weapons are no longer being imported from Israel, together with Pedro Sánchez’s statement that no arms sales have been signed to Tel Aviv since last October 7, 2023, Spain would be applying de facto an arms embargo on Israel, although not in a formal or comprehensive manner – there are still deals with the industry.
It is the first time that the Government affirms that weapons purchases from Israel have been suspended, as Robles does in his response to Sumar. Of course, Defense still does not provide a single document, beyond provisional, opaque and partial data to respond to independent reports.
What Robles does recognize, in line with what was claimed by Bustinduy – in whose letter to Defense he requested the immediate termination of the last purchase contracts that Spain maintains with the Israeli military industry without specifically mentioning the purchase of weapons – is that there are contracts, according to her, for spare parts for military material previously purchased from Israel.
According to Defense sources cited by El País, the department “only contracted in the last year the repair of parts, especially aeronautical, that were temporarily exported to Israel and returned after being repaired to guarantee the operability of Air Force aircraft.”
Defense when talking about “temporary export” would refer to a form of service after-sales after import: returned (exported) for repair and redelivery.
More than a billion in purchases from Israel
According to a report this summer, Spain, contrary to what Robles said on Wednesday, has been importing weapons from Israel and awarding public contracts to Israeli security and defense companies or their subsidiaries in Spain after the start of the genocide in Gaza. .
In addition, it also continued to send weapons to Israel after October 7. This was detailed in a report by the Delàs Center for Peace Studies, to which elDiario.es had access before its publication. In it, the researchers highlighted that the value of these public contracts is 1,027 million euros as of October 2023, and that, “despite the extreme seriousness of Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip, Spain’s military relations with Israel have not been substantially altered as of October 7.”
Since the beginning of the massacre in Gaza, Spain had not suspended imports of military material from Israel until Robles’ communication this Wednesday, which did not explain how long.
In addition, it has continued to award contracts to Israeli military companies, including the first and third in the sector in Israel: Elbit Systems and Rafael (PAP Tecnos is its subsidiary in Spain). Rafael is a public Israeli company. Elbit is private, but has a very close and highly strategic link with the Israeli Armed Forces. Both “are the most profitable from the military operations in the Gaza Strip, where they have frequently tested and used the same products that they offer to the Spanish armed forces,” says the Center Dèlas.
Among those contracts granted by Spain to Israeli military companies – or to their subsidiaries in Spanish territory – the acquisition of the SILAM rocket launcher system (consortium with Elbit) or the SPIKE missiles (PAP Tecnos, a subsidiary of Rafael) stand out, both advertised as “tested in combat”, that is, in the Palestinian territories.
Israel’s weapons systems companies “are the main military companies promoting and facilitating the occupation of the Palestinian territories,” various reports over the past few years show. For this reason, Israeli weapons acquisitions “promote the viability of that country’s defense industry and also favor the militarization and military occupation of Palestine,” warns the Center Dèlas.
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