Richard Marles and Penny Wong deny Australia is aiding Israel’s slaughter of the Palestinians but they are dissembling over military exports with Orwellian language. Michelle Fahy for Declassified Australia reports on ‘non-lethal’ weapons parts.
‘Lethal’ is the first word Lockheed Martin uses to describe and market its F-35 fighter jet as “the most lethal fighter jet in the world”. In March this year, the F-35A version was also operationally certified to carry a nuclear bomb – the first fighter jet or bomber granted nuclear-capable status since the 1990s.
Lockheed Martin has acknowledged that “every F-35 built contains some Australian parts and components”, a number of which Australia is also the sole source. The F-35 would not operate without all its parts and components.
According to the UN: “The scale of human death and destruction wrought by Israel’s bombing of Gaza (since October 7) … has been immense.”
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Government in damage control
Up until a few weeks ago, ministers were still trying to maintain the line that “Australia is not sending weapons to Israel and has not done so for the past five years.”
On ABC radio in early June, Defence Minister Richard Marles said: “What the Greens are alleging is that somehow we are supplying Israel with weapons which are being used in the conflict in Gaza. That is absolutely false, and … a total lie.”
But after nine months of denying weapons are going to Israel, senior ministers are in damage control after a Defence Department official admitted for the first time since the Hamas attack on Israel that there are
active export permits relating to Israel that cover the transfer of parts and components.
Senior ministers have now introduced an Orwellian phrase—“non-lethal parts”—to defend the continued export of key parts and components into the F-35 supply chain. The government was forced to change its language following evidence given by a Department official in a recent Senate Estimates hearing.
Hugh Jeffrey, a deputy secretary, told Estimates that “around 66” defence export permits “that relate to Israel” remain active. A proportion of them related to Australian Defence Force capability, he said.
“The remaining elements of those permits range from parts and components to technology exports,” Jeffrey said. The Defence Department had finally admitted that it has active permits relating to Israel that cover the export of parts and components.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong was forced to concede that Australia was exporting parts into the F-35 global supply chain but then doubled down. She told ABC Insiders on 16 June: “We have F-35s… we are part of 18 nations who are part of that consortia. We are involved in non-lethal parts…”
Five days earlier, Richard Marles had said: “There are a number of what I’d describe as non-lethal parts that are provided to the F-35s.”
‘Non-lethal parts’ disinformation
The UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) makes no mention of the lethality of the individual parts or components that comprise the weapons (“conventional arms”) it covers.
The ‘non-lethal parts’ messaging is also directly at odds with a UN statement issued on 20 June that named multinational arms companies in its call to cease supplying Israel with arms, “even if [the arms transfers] are executed under existing export licenses.”
Under the headline “States and companies must end arms transfers to Israel immediately or risk responsibility for human rights violations”, the statement named 11 multinationals, including Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Rheinmetall and RTX/Raytheon, which all have significant operations in Australia.
The UN statement said, “These companies, by sending weapons, parts, components, and ammunition to Israeli forces,
risk being complicit in serious violations of international human rights and international humanitarian laws.
What’s a weapon?
The favoured line of all MPs – that “Australia is not sending weapons to Israel and has not done so for the past five years” – has finally fallen apart. The carefully crafted line contained two elements designed to mislead: ‘weapons’ and ‘to Israel’.
The government is cynically relying on a narrow military definition. The department’s Hugh Jeffrey has said its chosen definition “derived from” definitions in the Arms Trade Treaty. “Under the UN definition, weapons are defined as whole systems, like armoured vehicles, tanks and combat helicopters,” he said.
However, the Arms Trade Treaty does not use the word “weapons” as implied by Jeffrey; it uses the term “conventional arms”. Article 2 of the treaty says that it applies to “all conventional arms within the following categories:”
- Battle tanks
- Armoured combat vehicles
- Large calibre artillery systems
- Combat aircraft
- Attack helicopters
- Warships
- Missiles and missile launchers
- Small arms and light weapons
Article 3 refers to ‘ammunition/munitions’, and Article 4 refers to ‘parts and components’. These military products are also included under the treaty’s prohibitions, meaning their export must cease if they are being used in serious violations of international law.
In all its previous public statements, the Albanese government had ignored Articles 3 and 4.
The Defence Department also continues to insist that parts and components are not weapons.
To Israel or not?
Military exports – including ammunition, munitions, parts and components – do not need to travel directly ‘to Israel’ to be prohibited under the ATT. On the contrary, Governments are required to find out where their weapons will or may end up and then make decisions that comply with the treaty.
Using arms trade lingo, a government must consider and assess the potential ‘end users’ of its military exports.
The Arms Trade Treaty and the Geneva Conventions are clear on human rights responsibilities. Article 6.3 states that a nation-state should not authorise any transfer of conventional arms if it knows at the time that the items would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, or other war crimes.
Article 7.1 states that the exporting nation must assess the potential for conventional arms to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law or international human rights law.
Article 7.4 adds that this requirement also includes ammunition, munitions, parts and components.
The UN experts also referred to the Geneva Conventions when warning countries that any transfer of weapons or ammunition to Israel that would be used in Gaza was likely to violate international humanitarian law:
“States must accordingly refrain from transferring any weapon or ammunition – or parts for them – if it is expected … that they would be used to violate international law … Such transfers are prohibited even if the exporting State does not intend the arms to be used in violation of the law … as long as there is a clear risk.”
This story an edited version of the story first published by Declassified Australia.
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Michelle is an independent writer and researcher, specialising in the examination of connections between the weapons industry and government. She writes for various independent publications and on Substack on Undueinfluence.substack.com.