Arab News Japan

TOKYO: Protesters denounced the Japan International Aerospace Exhibition in Tokyo on Wednesday, claiming it was a “de facto weapons trade show” and criticizing collaborations with Israeli weapons manufacturers while demanding that the Japanese government end cooperation with Israeli companies.

The campaign against the exhibition stated: “The exhibitor list includes many well-known defense companies, both domestic and foreign, that are currently participating in the Gaza massacre. While the domestic booths are certainly focused on aerospace, the international booths are, in fact, arms trade shows.”

The protesters noted that exporting weapons to Israel, including Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest military company that supplies weapons to commit genocide in Gaza, was criticized by 30 UN experts for “being complicit in violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law.” They also pointed out that Israeli weapons companies are banned from exhibiting in France.

On Wednesday, the first day of the weapons fair, protesters proclaimed, “NO to the massacre!” in Gaza and “Don’t turn the International Aerospace Exhibition into a massacre and weapons exhibition!”

Meanwhile, thousands of activists signed on to a campaign by change.orgagainst the actions of Japanese companies, saying, “An arms fair that boasts its commercial value in terms of its ability to take human life should not be able to be held in Japan, a country with Article 9 of the Constitution that forever renounces the threat and use of force and swears not to maintain land, sea, or air forces or other war potential.”

It also pointed out that the Abe administration abolished the Three Principles on Arms Exports ten years ago and adopted the Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology, making arms exports national policy. Since then, Japan has repeatedly exhibited at arms fairs overseas and has also openly held arms fairs in Japan.

It added: “This year’s International Aerospace Exhibition will be held amid Russia’s continuing war of aggression against Ukraine and Israel’s expanding genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. From the latter perspective we fear that the ‘Aerospace Exhibition’ will degenerate into a ‘genocidal’ weapons exhibition.”

“The Israeli army has already massacred at least 40,000 people in the Gaza massacre alone. Gaza and the West Bank have become human experimentation grounds to test, refine, and evolve killing technology. The sheer amount of blood, charred bodies, and scattered flesh are what ‘demonstrate’ the performance of the weapons on display.”

The protesters accuse the exhibition of attracting “a whole host of domestic and foreign merchants of death,” with a growing number of Israeli companies at the event.