Washington warns Israel to look into use of US-weapons against Palestinians
Israel-USA, Politics, 8/30/2001

"The State Department warned Tel Aviv it would take action in the near future to see if Israel had violated the American arms export law by using American weapons against Palestinians," a senior American Administration official said.

The US has warned Israel that it will present a report to the Congress in the near future including a recommendation that Israel violated US law by using American-made weapons to kill Palestinians, ABC News quoted the official, who requested anonymity, as saying late Tuesday.

The law stipulates that the American-made weapons are used by the recipient countries for the legitimate self-defence purposes.

If this term is violated, the State Department informs the Congress to look into the possibility of imposing punitive measures.

A state Department official meantime said Washington was not to give Israel a complete green light.

Last night, State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said that Israelis were aware of the restrictions imposed on them in the use of American weapons.

But he refused to elaborate on the ongoing American-Israeli contacts in this respect and would neither confirm nor deny that Washington had raised the issue with the Israeli ranking delegation, now visiting here for the so-called strategic dialogue between the two countries.

Israel's use of American weapons does not constitute a main issue in the contacts between the two countries, Boucher said, adding that the focus of discussion was on restoring calm and halting violence, how to stop terrorism, threats, violence and counter-violence.

"Legally speaking, the issue of Israel's use of American weapons is extremely complicated," he said.

"Washington has made it clear that Israel's use of heavy weaponry, especially in the densely-populated areas, is a very grave issue and threatens to take the lives of civilians," he added.

"This is the stance the US had adopted for several months," he said.

The US is Israel's primary source of weapons. Over the past four years, Israel received American weapons worth $ 5.2 billion, including F-15s, F-16s and helicopter gunships.

Israel has ignored all direct or indirect criticism for using heavy American arms against Palestinians.

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