Protests at shipping ports and a unique trial are drawing attention to Australian arms exports to Israel amid the war on Gaza, a trade that critics say is secretive and irresponsible.
“Few people know that Australia has one of the most secretive and irresponsible arms export systems in the world,” Australian Greens senator David Shoebridge told the Australian Senate on Tuesday.
A legal action launched Monday in the High Court of Australia by Palestinian and Australian human rights organizations also seeks to shed light on this hidden trade.
The case, which is the first of its kind in Australia, comes as Australian supporters of Palestine have joined the international “block the ship” movement to protest arms shipments to Israel.
An expected protest on Saturday at Sydney’s Port Botany followed a similar protest on Wednesday at Melbourne Harbour, where activists lay down in front of trucks carrying goods for Israeli shipping company Zim.
But it is difficult to determine whether shipments from Australia actually include weapons destined for Israel due to the general lack of transparency around Australia’s growing military export industry.
“Our government does not tell us to whom we export weapons; does not tell us what the weapons are; doesn’t tell us who benefits here in Australia from the arms sale,” Shoebridge told the Senate this week.
The Australian government approves hundreds of military sales to Israel and we have no idea what these weapons are or how they are used. Even the United States is more transparent about arms sales than Australia. It’s time to tell the truth. pic.twitter.com/26FED23AvM
– David Shoebridge (@DavidShoebridge) November 7, 2023
Shoebridge said such information is much less available in Australia than in other countries, including the United States.
What is known is that Australia has issued 350 defense export permits to Israel since 2017, including 52 this year alone, according to the Australian Department of Defense. This information was only made public after direct questions from Shoebridge during Senate hearings this year.
“A large and growing arms industry”
Antony Loewenstein, an Australian journalist and author of the book The Palestine Laboratory, said there is “overwhelming evidence” that Western states, including Australia, are selling weapons that are “potentially being used in Gaza as we speak “.
Loewenstein, who was based in East Jerusalem between 2016 and 2020, investigated how Israeli weapons and surveillance technology are used against Palestinians and exported around the world.
“There is bipartisan support (from major political parties) in Australia for a large and growing arms industry, regardless of the serious human rights concerns associated with it,” Loewenstein said.
“Secrecy benefits the arms industry,” he told Al Jazeera.
“What matters at the end of the day is making money,” he said.
“That’s what it’s all about.”
Australia was the world’s 15th largest exporter of major arms in 2022, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which monitors global arms sales.
Like Shoebridge, Loewenstein welcomed the legal challenge announced Monday by Palestinian and Australian human rights organizations. He says it could be a “landmark case” that the Australian government will “likely fight hard” in court.
Al-Haq, one of three Palestinian human rights organizations involved in the trial, is also embroiled in other legal challenges, including another potential case focused on UK arms exports to Israel.
Last month, Al-Haq and the UK-based Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) wrote to UK Secretary of State for International Trade Kemi Badenoch, asking her to “suspend all export licenses arms to Israel.
If the export licenses were not suspended, Al-Haq and GLAN said a legal challenge would be taken to the UK High Court.
In Australia, Al-Haq, together with the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), launched legal action in the Federal Court of Australia with support of the Australian Center for International Justice (ACIJ). .
Unlike the UK, the Australian case focuses on access to information on export permits for Australian defense products to Israel granted by the Minister of Defense since October 7, 2023.
Rawan Arraf, the executive director of the ACIJ, told Al Jazeera that access to export information is necessary to determine whether it will be possible to launch proceedings to seek a judicial review of Australian permits to determine whether some were “issued in error”. “.
Such errors, says Arraf, could, for example, include the fact that “the Australian defense minister failed to take into account the criteria relevant to the risk of the export being used to facilitate human rights abuses.” man or that she can go to a country where she could be used contrary to human rights. Australia’s international obligations.
International obligations include the Geneva Conventions, the Genocide Convention and other international human rights laws, she said.
In the UK, information on companies applying for export permits, as well as the nature of the exports, and “even the dollar amount”, is available, she added.
Asked about the legal action, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles told Australian public broadcaster ABC on Tuesday that “Israel has not requested any weapons from Australia and we have not provided any.”
He added that he could not comment further while the matter was “before the court”.
Marles’ office sent a transcript of the interview to Al Jazeera when asked for the defense minister’s position on the matter.
Port events
Australian activists protesting at Melbourne Harbor on Wednesday stopped trucks, including those carrying goods for the Israeli shipping company Zim.
These protests come in addition to other similar protests, including one that took place at the Port of Tacoma in the United States and by airport employees in Belgium who refuse to handle military shipments to Israel.
Zim is a publicly traded Israeli shipping company, and it is unclear whether any of the ships or trucks targeted by the Australian protests were carrying military equipment.
Organizers of the Sydney protest said Zim’s role “in the Israeli war machine was relentless.”
In an interview with Australian radio station 2GB about a planned protest at Sydney’s Port Botany on Saturday, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns described Israel as “a long-standing trading partner and an ally of Australia.
“It is ridiculous to suggest or think that trade will be disrupted due to the personal preferences of individual protesters,” he said.
“I haven’t seen these people at the port when it comes to trade with Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China or any other country with which there might be disagreements,” Minns added.