An Israeli diplomat in New York said “two sides” were guilty of war crimes in Myanmar’s ongoing military operations in Rakhine State, which have displaced more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims from the country since August.
According to Israeli daily Haaretz, Israel’s deputy consul general to the US, Amir Sagie, met with six American rabbis after they organized a petition two weeks ago calling on Israel to halt arms sales to Myanmar, which has been accused by the UN of committing ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya.
“As American citizens and as Jews, we refuse to accept any involvement by the US or Israel in training or arming a military that is carrying out a brutal ethnic cleansing against a minority population,” the petition said.
In response, Sagie told the rabbis that to the best of Israel’s knowledge, the conflict “started after Muslims attacked government positions in Myanmar” and that “the two sides in the conflict are conducting war crimes.”
The diplomat’s position on the crisis echoes that of the Myanmar government, which is that the military operations are a response to attacks by the Rohingya insurgent group ARSA on police outposts on August 25. The government also pointed to similar ARSA attacks in October 2016 before displacing tens of thousands of Rohingya civilians in a previous campaign.
Critics of the Myanmar government, including the UN Security Council, have accused the Myanmar military of excessive force and human rights violations, including killing, sexual violence, and the burning of homes. Council members also called on Myanmar to address the root causes of the conflict, including the government’s withholding of citizenship from over a million Rohingya.
Responding to questions from the rabbis about Israel’s arms sales to Myanmar amid these allegations, Sagie said Israel “does not discuss publicly with our friends or our foes Israel’s military or defense relationships.” He stressed, however, that all of Israel’s weapons exports are “done with due diligence” and that exports take “into consideration human rights violations, including existing sanctions from the UN or international organizations.”
The American rabbis’ petition follows a series of other petitions from within Israel – one from Israeli rabbis, and another from a group of lawyers and human rights activists. In response to the latter, Israel’s High Court of Justice passed down a secret ruling, which has widely been interpreted as a refusal to halt arms sales to Myanmar.
Last week, Intelligence Online reported that Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman quietly froze military exports to Myanmar in order to “appease the United States.” Israel has not confirmed the report, and rights advocates remain doubtful of its veracity.
A Facebook post by the Myanmar Navy revealed that Israel sold military equipment to Myanmar as recently as April 2017, right between the two most recent campaigns of mass displacement of Rohingya civilians. The deal’s value has been estimated at tens of millions of dollars.
