The Japanese Robotic Controversy Lurking in Israel’s Army Provide Chain

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 underneath Japanese export legislation, 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 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 mentioned 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 corporations equivalent to Elbit Programs,” Imano claimed.

FANUC has denied this cost. “Once we promote merchandise to Israel, we supply out the required transaction screening in accordance with Japan’s Overseas Change and Overseas Commerce Act, affirm the consumer’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 Programs, 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 certainly one of 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 similar time, the corporate admitted that once they promote by way of intermediaries, of which Israel has a number of, they aren’t 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. 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 provide fuselage parts 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 facility, handling munitions.

One other Israeli firm, Wager 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 relatively than navy functions. Wager Shemesh counts the Israeli Air Power as a significant consumer.