Australians Deserve More Than Squirmy Government Denials of Weapons to Israel

Despite the official line coming from the Australian government that this nation has not exported weapons to Israel for at least five years, news broke regarding evidence that the Zionist nation has been trialling an Australian made “high-precision weapon platform with the firepower of a 30 mm cannon”, which included a photo of the Israeli defence minister and officials posing with it.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge broke the news of Australian weapons to Israel on 11 April 2025. The Australian-made weapon now being considered by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) is Electro Optic Systems’ (EOS) R400 remote weapons system (RWS), and it marks the most significant development in the campaign to expose government lies regarding military supply complicity in the Gaza genocide.

Shoebridge and many other antiwar-antigenocide campaigners have been focused on attempting to reveal whether the Albanese government was continuing to allow locally-made weapons to end up with the IDF, over the entire course of the 18 month long wholesale mass murder of Palestinians, which was no easy task, as the evidence was well hidden, and government lied under cover of this.

In one of his most stunning statements since the outbreak of the Gaza genocide, prime minister Anthony Albanese continued on 11 April 2025, with his tired old mantra that “Australia does not export arms to Israel”, due to a technicality that involved EOS in Australia exporting the R400 in parts to its subsidiary in the United States for assembly, prior to then exporting it on to Israel.

But for Australia’s top minister to continue federal Labor’s denial regarding this nation having been exporting weapons to be used by genocidal and apartheid Israel in its extermination of Palestinian children, women and men in pursuit of land, Albanese is not only treating the constituency like it’s made up by a pack of idiots, but he’s making us all complicit in the gravest crime since the Holocaust.

The proof is in the photo

“We had concerns raised with our office confidentially about 12 months ago, that this manufacturer EOS was sending rapid-fire weaponry to Israel,” Senator Shoebridge told Sydney Criminal Lawyers on the day the news broke. “We have been searching publicly available resources for evidence of that since.”

“We had further contact a few weeks ago, and sharpened our searches, eventually discovering evidence of it through social media posting from an Israeli weapons manufacturer,” he continued.

“It’s been a piecing together of the evidence in the weeks that followed that’s allowed us to confirm this lethal Australian weapon as being in the hands of the Israeli military in January this year.”

All the components of the EOS R400 RWS, which obviously could be assembled over here, are being exported to the US, so the EOS American subsidiary can put the weapon together over there, prior to exporting it on to Israel, using US paperwork, and hiding its Australian origins.

That the prime minister considers constituents who have had this scenario laid bare to them, will still buy his denials, is an utter insult to the public.

The R400 is described by EOS as “lightweight 30 mm lethality with precise mobile engagements up to 2 km”. The RWS can be used to take out vehicles, drones and people, including Palestinian civilians.

In a 25 February 2025 EOS investor presentation, the photo of Israeli defence minister Israel Katz and other IDF officials appear under a heading “Counter Drone Evaluation Testing with New Customer,” which is dated January 2025. And the document further elaborates that the military officials considered the system “performed extremely well” and earnt “high praise from the organisers”.

“It’s our understanding that what is called AUKUS Pillar II, which is a series of legislative changes that allowed weapons to be sent from Australia to the United States without an export permit,” Shoebridge, the Greens defence spokesperson, continued, “and that’s the avenue that they used to export this equipment to Israel.”

Duping the public over facilitating genocide

The first significant breakthrough on Australian arms to Israel came with human rights lawyer Kellie Tranter’s November 2023 Declassified Australia article that revealed that local manufacturer RUAG Australia produces and supplies Lockheed Martin with the device that opens and closes its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s weapons bay doors, which is the jet that’s been used extensively in Gaza.

Shoebridge had already been quizzing Australian foreign affairs minister Penny Wong about the F-35 components and other potential exports to Israel prior to the publication of Tranter’s piece, and by December 2023, the senator had commenced questioning around the DFAT site then detailing that over the five years to 2022, Australia had exported $13 million of arms and ammunition to Israel.

Wong repeatedly asserted to Shoebridge that his arms to Israel queries had involved him peddling in “misinformation” and “disinformation” in the parliament.

And by mid-2024, Wong and defence minister Richard Marles had found a comfortable refrain to engage in, which was along the lines of our nation only exporting non-lethal parts that end up in Israel, including the device to allow F-35s to drop bombs.

Shoebridge also ascertained during November 2024 Senate Estimates that the Albanese government had “lapsed or amended” 16 military permits to Israel over recent months, as they’d resulted in a “very high number of civilian casualties” during the Gaza genocide, while 59 of 65 export permits were for “inherently lethal” “goods and technologies designed or adapted for” military use.

In terms of AUKUS Pillar II facilitating EOS to ship R400 components to the US for assembly prior to export to Israel, Australia passed legislation in March last year, allowing for the streamlining of trade in defence goods and technologies with the US, while then passed US legislation served to designate Australia as a US domestic military source, further enhancing distribution from this country.

“Effectively, the R400 has been washed through the United States to Israel under the AUKUS arrangements,” Shoebridge made clear on 11 April, “yet another reason we are strongly opposed to them.”

Any excuse in a political storm

“We do not sell arms to Israel,” Albanese told a journalist on being asked about the EOS revelations last Friday.

“I am aware of the report that you refer to. We looked into this matter. The company’s confirmed with the Department of Defence the particular system was not exported from Australia. Australia does not export arms to Israel,” the prime minister seemingly confirmed.

But with an election looming this sort of tact from the PM is not appreciated. Albanese’s answers portray a leader of a constituency, failing to respect the intelligence of his electors to the point where he can simply deny that Australian-made weaponry is making it into genocidal Israeli state hands because of a logic that involves assembly in the US, and therefore, we are all absolved of these sins.

“Watching the prime minister wash his hands of responsibility of Australian weapons, which are described as ‘lightweight lethality’ being delivered to the Israeli Defence Forces in the middle of a genocide is extremely disturbing,” Shoebridge said in conclusion, “either he doesn’t understand what he is permitting or there is a deep moral vacuum at the heart of Labor.”