During the last few days we have been able to see how the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, urged the international community to put an end to the sale of weapons to Israel “as Spain has already done”, stating that “without weapons there is no war”. I couldn’t agree more with this statement, but has Spain really stopped selling weapons to Israel? And, even if this were the case, is this an effective measure of pressure given the magnitude of the situation we find ourselves in? What happens with the rest of commercial relations such as the purchase or transit of ships with weapons destined for Israel through our territory?
In order to answer these questions, it may be necessary to understand a little better how the dark business of arms trade works and what the military and security relations between Spain and Israel are, which, warns spoilerhave not been altered as a whole in the last year.
As stated in the report published by the Center Delàs, military relations between Spain and Israel are not limited only to the purchase and sale of weapons. These relations also include the awarding of public contracts to Israeli companies, collaboration between companies from both states and bilateral or multilateral cooperation programs in intelligence and security. It is true that the sale seems the most direct form of assistance to the ongoing genocide, but this is only one part of the military relations and in fact, in the case of Spain, the smallest of them.
To date, we do not have official data that allows us to know the level of exports by our country to Israel after October 7. The defense material export report for 2023 has not yet been published and we only have the data for the first quarter which shows that Spain exported weapons to Israel worth 713,397 euros in categories 4 (bombs, torpedoes and explosive charges) and 5 (fire direction systems).
According to the DataComex portal, which offers less precise data because it does not include all the categories that are broken down in the defense exports report, we know the total amount of exports from Spain to Israel in category 93 “Arms and ammunition” has been 1,607 ,049 euros. We do not know if these exports occurred before or after October 7, but on the same portal we can see that in 2024 weapons worth €529 have also been exported to Israel. Is 529 euros enough to sustain a genocide? Obviously not. But what this data indicates is that Spain to date does not have a real and systematic policy to end the sale of weapons to Israel. What we have are declarations and political acts and in a rule of law, these decisions are supported by administrative acts that, to date, have not occurred. Believing, therefore, President Sánchez’s words in this regard is almost an act of faith.
Once our first question has been resolved about whether or not Spain sells weapons to Israel, I would like to return to the second question that I posed at the beginning of this article, about whether the sale of weapons is the response we need in the face of a drama of such magnitude. I do not intend to list all the atrocities committed by the Israeli army in the last year, just by looking at the news of the last few days with people burned alive in the basements of a hospital, the ground invasion and the deployment of Israel’s genocidal policies in Lebanon or the attack on the UNIFIL headquarters, should be more than enough reasons to decree a complete embargo on Israel.
When we talk about an embargo, we are talking about a clearly defined legal concept that involves cutting all arms and security relations with a country for a specific reason and time. It is a type of sanction provided by the United Nations to contribute to the maintenance of peace and that has been used on numerous occasions for this purpose, such as in Afghanistan against the Taliban regime, in the Central African Republic or in South Africa, where it was a key measure to end apartheid.
The sale of weapons to Israel is not enough nor can it be the ceiling of our demands because it is precisely the purchase of these materials that is causing Israel to continue massacring the Palestinian people and now the Lebanese people with impunity.
The Israeli military industry is a key piece of the genocidal machine of the State of Israel. An industry that develops in massacres like the one in Gaza, that it has been refining for decades with the apartheid regime imposed on the Palestinian people and that then sells to governments like ours, under the brand “Tested in Combat.” This war business not only allows them to lower their production costs but also generates great economic returns that help sustain this colonial, genocidal and apartheid regime. The crimes committed in recent months have reached such a degree of magnitude, such a degree of cruelty and barbarity that they have almost managed to make invisible the very serious violations of rights that Israel had been perpetrating against the Palestinian people for decades, sustained, among others, thanks to the maintenance of its military and security industry.
Maintaining military relations with Israel is maintaining a system built on systematic repression and oppression. Buying weapons from Israel is buying a security system built on flagrant violations of human rights and this, the rejection of an inhumane security model, should be sufficient reason to impose a total arms embargo on Israel.
However, our Government has awarded contracts to Israeli arms companies worth €1,027 million since October 7 and they argue that a total embargo is not possible because our security depends on these relationships. This cannot be a reason, but rather a collective problem that we must address as soon as possible if we do not want to leave our values as humanity buried under the rubble of Gaza.
The list of ethical, human, political and legal reasons for imposing a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel is endless. It is very good that Mr. President urges the international community to stop selling weapons to Israel, it would be even better to urge a complete embargo and start doing it at home. This article is full of arguments for this, are they missing any? Give us, if you find it, just one reason not to do it, but do it quickly because we are already at least 43,000 lives late.
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