German gun manufacturer ties Israel together with 'corrupt regimes' - Arab-Israeli Conflict - Jerusalem Post

23.9.17

German gun manufacturer ties Israel together with 'corrupt regimes' - Arab-Israeli Conflict - Jerusalem Post: The company quietly announced the move as a side note in its most recent annual report, stating that they will now only sell to “green countries,” which they defined as being NATO-members or “NATO-equivalent” (Japan, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand) and those that met Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index and the Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index.

While Heckler & Koch did not respond to an inquiry regarding why Israel was added to the list, the German economic ministry told The Jerusalem Post in an email that while they are aware of the media reports, “we don’t comment on company trials or decisions.”

According to The Guardian, the move makes Heckler & Koch the first arms company to have a more ethical export control policy than its own government. Germany, the world’s fifth largest arms exporter with a total of 6.85 billion euros ($8.22 billion) in sales last year, is in a two-year pilot phase of a new initiative to monitor the end use of its arms export.