Report: Canada’s weapons exports to Israel are at a 30-year high

A new report found that Canada’s arm exports to Israel have been increasing since the mid-2000s, hitting a 30-year high in 2020. The value of the exports are at the highest level since 1987.

Arming Apartheid: Canada’s Arm Exports to Israel, which was published today by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), calls on Canadian officials to suspend all military trade with Israel and launch a parliamentary investigation into whether Canadian weapons have been used to kill Palestinian civilians. “To put it simply, there is no excuse for continuing to provide military transfers to a state which is credibly accused of apartheid, war crimes, and a multitude of forms of violence against Palestinian civilians,” it reads. “The Canadian government may refer to Israel as a ‘steadfast ally,’ but this should not prevent Canada from taking a hard look at its arms transfers to Israel in light of international arms treaties.”

The report also puts the findings in historical context, noting that arms exports to Israel dropped dramatically after The First Intifada in 1987. Between 1992-1994 the Canadian government reported annual exports of $0. Exports resumed after the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA) lifted existing weapons restrictions of 1996, but remained at low levels until the 2000s. Between the years 2010 and 2015, the country’s combined exports to Israel totaled $29,838,108. That number went up by nearly 145% between 2016 and 2020, when total exports were $72,026,132.

“It is shocking that Canadian officials have allowed military exports to Israel to accelerate over the past decade, given the undeniable evidence of Israeli human rights abuses,” said CJPME Vice President Michael Bueckert in a statement. “The potential risk to human rights is far too high to justify the transfer of any military goods into this context of occupation and apartheid.”

The report comes amid a spate of violence in the region. On Sunday Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in less than 24 hours, including one child and a partially blind widow. Earlier this month a Palestinian gunman opened fire in Tel Aviv, killing three Israelis and wounding ten. The shooter, who was killed by police near a mosque in Jaffa, was from from the illegally-occupied West Bank city of Jenin.

In February Amnesty International released a 280-page report declaring Israel an apartheid state and calling its treatment of Palestinians a “crime against humanity.”

“Decades of deliberately unequal treatment of Palestinians in all areas under the control of Israel has left Palestinians marginalized and subject to widespread and systematic socio-economic disadvantage as they are barred from equitable access to natural and financial resources, livelihood opportunities, healthcare and education,” reads the report.