Liveblog: Smash EDO protest hits Brighton (From The Argus)

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  JHunty wrote:
  Hey Greg Kaye, an investigation has allready been carried out into whether Edo supply Israel, it was carried out last year by the Information Commissioners Office after a Freedom of Information request by Ceri Gibbons, a Smash Edo protestor. The Information Commissioner found, after interviewing the relevant civil servants and looking at the relevant export licences that the claim that Edo export to Israel had no factual basis.
  By the way was Ceri Gibbons chucked out of the smash edo group for showing them up as having lied about this as well?

  Thanks for this J. really interesting. For those that are interested the Argus report is at http://www.theargus.
  co.uk/news/4734080.W
  atchdog_rule__no_evi
  dence__that_Brighton
  _s_EDO_supply_Israel
  i_air_force/.
  
  The whole thing is worth a read and yet I was still a bit troubled though by the bit that read: The tribunal concluded: “There was no dispute that the ERU151 and the ZRFAU are components which can be incorporated into VER-2 bomb racks for use with F-16 combat aircraft, that those aircraft are used by the Israeli air force, and that from 1998 EDO owned the right to manufacture the ERU151 and the ZRFAU.”
  
  EDO owned the right - OK but I see the point that there may still be responsibility here. Israel are reportedly the second biggest consumer of F16s after the States. The States have joined Britain in operations in Iraq that, due to various bodges, can at the least be regarded to have been criminally negligent. Israel as been involved in operations that have been more overtly criminal.
  
  I have no doubt that EDO have been working within the law. I sometimes wonder if the politicians who make the laws do the same thing.
  
  Then we get to the question of Israel. Many people, myself included, feel strongly about this Wales sized country. Curiously this small yet greatly divided country has good cordial relationships with nearby Jordan and Egypt and, if i remember right, had a grandmother from either the occuppied territory of Gaza or the west bank who was prepared to blow herself up in a suicide bombing.
  This blog has mentioned derrivations of the word democracy many times but has made little mention of progressively squeezed occupation. A lot has been said about the upkeep of law but little has been said of a land where different sections of population are afforded greatly differing standards of rights.
  An issue related to Israel's occupied territories raises strong feelings amongst those who have learned of the injustices there.
  But are EDO implicated?
  Do they produce a product that can be used to do harm and which may be used to inforce discrimination?
  If so what are the arguments that these products should be banned?
  By analogy we can note that this country domestically has many harmful or less than healthy products have been banned for a wide variety of reasons. It seems that we cant produce various solvents and the like for domestic consumption and yet we can produce ERU151s and ZRFAUs. As devil's advocate it may be argued that it doesn't matter that we do this simply because any people that may suffer from certain uses of these devices would be at the very least a bombs drop away.
  Other analogies may point to Britain's has double standards. We restrict the availabilty of guns and knives on OUR streets and yet, despite the potential actions of various governments or of their individual members of military personel, we allow the feed of military equipment into overseas operations.
  
  Admittedly bombs have their uses. I guess questions may be asked at which point you stop the weapons getting into the wrong hands and who has the wrong hands. Smash EDO have their view of what should be done in regard to one potential provider and yet I'm sure that the palistinians and similar peoples would be open to other solutions."
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