Arms Diplomacy and Human Rights: The Case of Israel’s Relations With the Philippines and Myanmar

Abstract

This article discusses the role of arms diplomacy in Israel’s relations with the Philippines and Myanmar, and the consequences that these ties have had on human rights. The findings show that (1) Israel uses arms exports to promote its Look East policy; and (2) Israel’s security ties with the Philippines and Myanmar trump human rights concerns. The article provides a critical discussion of the security dimension of Israel’s relations with the Philippines and Myanmar, raising questions regarding the use of arms diplomacy to promote bilateral relations with regimes that have poor human rights records.

Keywords

Israel–Philippines relations Israel–Myanmar relations Rohingya minority arms diplomacy small arms and light weapons human rights

Introduction

Over the past few years, Israel has given increased foreign policy attention to the Southeast Asia region. Several reasons have contributed to this continuing trend: the rising of European anti-Israel social movements; the growing tension between Israel and the EU over the conflict with the Palestinians, Israel’s settlements and its military activity; and the decline of political ties with Latin American countries (Ecuador, Brazil, Chile, Peru and El Salvador), that even recalled their ambassadors during the Protective Edge operation in 2014.Conversely, aside from a few protests (mainly in Malaysia and Indonesia) against Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians, Southeast Asian policy toward Israel is in general relatively moderate, with limited anti-Israel rhetoric (Ningthoujam, 2016, 2017).

As can be seen in Figure 1, Israel, a middle-sized power that has significantly raised the international status of its growing arms industry (Shymanska and Heo, 2022), has become one of the biggest Western arms exporters worldwide. As shown by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) 2019 and 2020 annual reports, from 2016 to 2020 out of the world’s 10 largest weapons exporters, Israel was the eighth largest arms exporter, with a share of 3.1% of all security exports worldwide. For the last three years, Israel has been listed as the tenth largest arms exporter with a share of 2.3% of all security exports worldwide (SIPRI, 2023). According to the Israeli Ministry of Defense Website (n.d.), in 2023 Israel’s security exports worldwide have reached US$13.1 billion. This study argues that Israel has chosen arms diplomacy as the main political tool to advance its foreign relations with the Philippines and Myanmar.

Figure 1.

Total Israeli security exports, 2009–2023 (in billions of dollars).

This article looks at the security dimension of Israel’s relations with the Philippines and Myanmar for several reasons. First, the Philippines and Myanmar have both committed massive, systematic human rights violations during recent years. According to Amnesty International’s (2023) 2022–2023 report and Human Rights Watch’s 2022 world report, the ’war on drugs’ initiated in 2016 by former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has been associated with numerous human rights abuses, and has not ceased after he left office. In fact, the number of extrajudicial killings and instances of impunity, as well as other killings, have increased since the 2022 election of Duterte’s successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. In the case of Myanmar, according to Amnesty International’s (2023) 2022–2023 report (p. 263), the security force’s brutal actions against the civil protests against the military rule have intensified, highlighting that “thousands of people were arbitrarily detained and more than 1000 opposition politicians, political activists, human rights defenders and others were convicted in unfair trials.”

Second, for the last decade, both the Philippines and Myanmar have been involved with internal conflicts characterized by usage of small arms to commit large scale human rights abuses (Frey, 2003; Mc Evoy and Hideg, 2017). Third, although arms diplomacy has been dominant in Israel’s relations with the Philippines and Myanmar over the past decade, surprisingly, the arms sales and norms literature has not properly studied the extent of Israel’s security cooperation in Southeast Asia in general, and its security cooperation with the Philippines and Myanmar specifically. This is partly related to Israel’s lack of transparency regarding its worldwide arms sales, which brings us to the final reason. According to Melman (2017a), “There is no other democratic country in the world that censors information about its security export deals.” In its 2019 report, the Smalls Arms Survey defined Israel as the least transparent country with respect to security ties, alongside North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia (Small arms survey, 2019). Israel’s attempts to limit any discussion of its arms sales are even more intense when it comes to small arms, apparently due to the prevalence of their usage in internal conflicts related to human rights violations.

The low cost of small arms, their wide distribution, easy operation, and the fact that light weapons are often used directly against civilians, all validate the criticism of small arms sales (Adetiba, 2019; Boutwell and Klare, 1998; Kinsella, 2006). Human rights violations, including killing, detaining and/or torturing political opponents, sexual violence, and uprooting civilians from their homes, are often associated with light weapons purchased from Israel, among other Western countries. Indeed, the Amnesty International (2001) report titled Human Rights Abuses with Small Arms, has named 100 countries where human rights abuses are committed by both governments and political opponents using small arms. In addition, a Human Rights Watch (2003) report specifically noted that government forces all too often use small arms to carry out atrocities and are rarely held accountable.” It also argued that in other cases “governments fail to exercise control over private actors, allowing armed individuals and groups to commit small arms-aided abuses with impunity,” and that small arms “are the weapon of choice in many conflicts and often have been used to illegally target civilians” (Human Rights Watch, 2003: 4).

The broader body of arms sales and norms literature has mostly focused on other Western arms exporters’ interests. Although Mandler and Lutmar (2020) did discuss Israel’s arms sales to the Philippines, Chad and Ukraine, and Selth (2019) has focused on the study of Myanmar’s armed forces (or Tatmadaw), in-depth critical discussion of Israel’s arms diplomacy toward these two countries is scarce. Thus, the present study engages in a systematic critical examination of the role of arms sales in Israel’s relations with the Philippines and Myanmar, in particular asking two questions: Do national interests (political, security-related and economic) prevail over human rights concerns in Israel’s foreign policy toward the Philippines and Myanmar? And what are the human rights consequences of these arms sales to the Philippines and Myanmar?

Methods

The lack of transparency re- Israel’s security deals, including small arms sales, poses a methodological challenge regarding the study’s empirical database. It is also impossible to obtain full, accurate data regarding Israel’s arms deals brokered by third countries. Consequently, this article refers only to openly available data, while estimating that the real figures are higher. To examine the scope of Israel’s arms deals and security cooperations with the Philippines and Myanmar, I used an empirical database that was as comprehensive as possible under the circumstances, including academic, official and media sources. The data were gathered from previous studies, UN and human rights organizations’ reports, official reports from the Security Export Division of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, and media reports.

In addition, despite the difficulty of interviewing Israeli policymakers (present or former) on the topic, due to Israel’s traditional non-transparency policy, I conducted two interviews. The first interviewee was Alon Liel, former Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and former Israeli Ambassador to South Africa, and the second Eitay Mack, an Israeli human rights lawyer working to stop Israeli arms supply to regimes committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, who I interviewed using email. The data collected in these interviews was used as a primary source to establish the connection between Israel’s arms deals and cases of human rights violations in Myanmar and the Philippines.

This study is premised on Potter’s (2010) claim that foreign policy analysis is the study of how countries execute their chosen foreign policy in regard to a specific case, and divided into three parts: the first offers a theoretical discussion of the links between arms sales, human rights abuses and international norms; the second discusses Israel’s arms diplomacy toward the Philippines and Myanmar by reviewing the history of Israeli arms sales to these countries; and the third suggests a critical analysis of Israeli arms sales to the Philippines and Myanmar and their impact on human rights.

Arms sales, human rights abuses, and international norms

Following Kinsella’s (2006: 100) claim that small arms “are, in a very real sense, weapons of mass destruction,” Gallea (2023) has explored the connection between arms sales and refugee movement in Africa, noting that arms import increases the risk and intensity of internal conflicts. Hatton (2016) explored a similar hypothesis, claiming that a key motive for migration is internal conflict, and according to Wezeman (2009), light weapons and small arms are the most used weapons in internal conflicts. In 2014 the International Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) came into force (https://thearmstradetreaty.org/), aimed at setting binding standards for the global arms trade among all UN member states. Arms sales can be discriminatory, since a state can determine who to sell arms to, thus potentially denying other states access to weapons. For this reason, the ATT was established in a multilateral effort to agree on common rules and regulations for the arms export domain (Bromley et al., 2012).

Thus, the ATT is an important milestone in reducing the illicit arms trade (Panke and Friedrichs, 2023), as it demands that the arms exporting countries avoid sales to regimes that might use such weapons to commit human rights abuses. Yet, as argued by Perkins and Neumayer (2010), Western countries sell arms to human rights-abusing governments to advance their economic and security interests, with political, economic and defense motivations often acting as the driving factors behind these deals. Their claim that “Western countries’ value-based arms control policy and practice is best understood in terms of organized hypocrisy—that is, inconsistent talk and action, arising from contradictory interests, obligations and incentives” (p. 248), leaves no doubt regarding these Western countries’ motivations. Blanton (2005: 648) specifically notes that “Political and strategic considerations played a prominent role in U.S. arms transfer policies during the Cold War.” He suggests that the United States provided arms “despite records of serious human rights abuse” (Blanton, 2005: 649).

This study adopts Schulze et al.’s (2017: 531) definition of norms as “behavioral expectations that can be explicit or implicit,” similarly to Katzenstein’s (1996: 5) definition: “Collective expectations for the proper behavior of actors with a given identity,” and Jepperson et al.’s (1996: 54) definition: “Collective expectations about proper behavior for a given identity.” The attempt to enforce international norms prohibiting arms sales to regimes that violate human rights is complex. Capie (2008: 640) argued that historically there has been very little effort to regulate “the possession, use or transfer of small arms and light weapons.” This trend changed in the 1990s, when NGO groups implored governments to take action to control small arms sales against the backdrop of the spread of human rights violations during internal conflicts. Following this, the international arms trade came under increased public discussion as well as academic scrutiny. However, the UN Program of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons (UNPoA) still fails to meet global expectations more than 20 years after its establishment (Wisotzki, 2022).

Arms sales are an economic necessity for the European weapons industry, and at the same time, an obstacle for the EU’s emerging global normative power role (Erickson, 2013). Therefore, Western democracies tend to ignore both formal and informal arms proliferation norms when it comes to their economic interests. According to Fracalossi de Moraes (2022), Britain sold arms to Argentina from 1976 to 1983, despite its military dictatorship’s poor human rights record, and Schulze et al. (2017) argue that German arms export policies fail to comply with norms prohibiting such export to countries involved in internal conflicts with recorded human rights abuses. Finally, Perkins and Neumayer (2010) argued that during the post-Cold War period, Western arms suppliers (such as France, Germany, Britain and the U.S.) have generally not exercised arms export controls to autocratic countries with poor human rights records. In line with previous works (Laurance et al., 2005; Schulze et al., 2017; Vroege, 2021), the Israeli case explored later shows that, on the one hand, arms export involves political and economic interests, but on the other hand, includes normative concerns.

The existing research on small arms trade incentives can be divided into two schools of thought. According to one school, various strategic factors drive arms exports, including the desire to strengthen security or have leverage over other governments. Various governments also use arms exports to boost their national economy and increase domestic employment (Hartley, 2000; Raska and Bitzinger, 2020; Yarhi-Milo et al., 2016). The second school of thought claims that governments decide to sell arms based on international norms, human rights concerns and international weapons control. Norm-driven governments can decide which weapons are problematic and whether arms transfer to certain actors are inappropriate due to their poor human rights record (Garcia, 2009, 2014; Krause, 2002). This begs the question of whether economic or strategic interests are predominant, or do governments more often adhere to international norms in their arms trade decisions? This study aligns with the former explanation, arguing that governments choose to sell arms due to their political aspirations to strengthen bilateral ties, such as Israel’s Look East policy. While the current literature has mainly focused on European democracies’ economic or strategic arms sales, this study seeks to add another layer by critically exploring Israeli arms diplomacy toward the Philippines and Myanmar.

Israel’s arms sales incentives

The Israeli case can be understood through the lens of Erickson’s (2013: 227) argument that ”Economic factors and military power concerns strongly affect arms transfer policy [. . . ] norms may be set aside or conveniently reinterpreted when they work against other more tangible state interests.” Israel has a clear economic interest in arms exports—according to the Israeli Ministry of Defense Security Export Division (SIBAT) figures, in 2020 Israel’s security exports worldwide amounted to US$8.55 billion, in 2021 the Israeli security exports increased to US$11.3 billion, in 2022 they further increased to US$12.5 billion, and in 2023 they reached US$13.1 billion (Israeli Ministry of Defense website, n.d., 2019). For Israel, security export is a vital element of economic development, indeed, it accounts for 10% of Israel’s total industrial exports, provides jobs, and is an important growth engine (Israeli Ministry of Defense Website, 2019). According to Wezeman (2011: 10), “There is no evidence of much discussion in [Israeli] government circles on the potential negative effects of arms deliveries. On the contrary, industry, high-ranking government officials and many politicians have consistently claimed that arms exports are needed for the existence and survival of the Israeli arms industry, which in turn is considered necessary for the survival of the Israeli state.” Therefore, Israel’s willingness to supply weapons to regimes that have committed human rights abuses may be controversial, but it contributes to the competitiveness of the Israeli arms industry (Wezeman, 2011).

These arguments are reinforced by Alon Liel, former Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and former Israeli Ambassador to South Africa, who in an interview with the author dated June 5, 2025, clarified that “Israel has always preferred security and economic considerations over image considerations when it comes to selling weapons..” He went on to say that arms sales have historically been seen in Israel as “critical for the security of the state and a rescue for the military industries..” Liel’s argument that “You have to sell to survive” can explain the huge volume of arms sales to the apartheid regime in South Africa, which was no less than a lifeline for the Israeli military industries..” Liel continued: “Even recently, when we sold weapons to Azerbaijan and made money, we did not pay a political price despite cases of human rights violations..” He concluded that “The issue is not the damage to our international image but rather political damage, and then there can be real change in Israel’s arms sales policy. There are not many cases where arms sales have led to significant political damage, so it is likely that the sales will continue for political and economic reasons..” Liel’s testimony sheds light on Israel’s considerations, indicating that, at least in the case of South Africa, economic considerations prevailed over responsibility, morality and human rights when Israel came to sell arms to the apartheid regime.

Israel–Philippines relations

Historically, the Philippines was the only Asian country to support the UN partition plan in 1947, and full diplomatic relations between the two states were established upon the signing of the Treaty of Friendship on February 26, 1958. Israel’s embassy in Manila and the Philippine embassy in Tel Aviv were opened in 1962, and the Philippines continued to maintain positive bilateral ties with Israel throughout the 1970s, after the 1973 war. These close ties are due to the Philippines being a Christian-majority nation as well as to Israel’s strong relationship with the United States and its general Western orientation (Evangelista, 2018; Mandler and Lutmar, 2020). In the decades since, Israel and the Philippines have maintained close security and economic cooperations, with Jerusalem and Manila having signed more than fourteen bilateral economic agreements, including a free trade agreement and a visa-free entrance agreement. The relations were further solidified as the former Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, made an official visit to Israel in 2018, during which over 20 agreements (worth nearly US$83 million) were signed. In addition, Israel benefits from Filipino workers, who comprise nearly 7% of the Israeli workforce (Evangelista, 2018; https://dimse.info/philippines/; Mandler and Lutmar, 2020).

Israel Philippines security ties

Information regarding Israel’s large weapons exports (aircraft and naval vessels) is usually revealed in the yearly Israeli reports to the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms (UNROCA). When it comes to defense weapon systems exported to Western European countries, for example, the scope of the official information and press coverage is extensive, such as in the case of the Arrow 3 missile defense system deal with Germany (https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/eimodarrowgermany). An analysis of the export reports that Israel sent to UNROCA from 1992 to 2022, however, reveals that they are incomplete, as they do not include information regarding small arms deals due to their connection to human rights violations (https://www.unroca.org/).

For the past decade, Israel has maintained extensive security links with the Philippines. From 2001 to 2018 Israel has delivered various security products to the Philippines, including UAVs, radar systems, towed guns and anti-tank missiles. According to the Israeli magazine Israel Defense, Israel has also supplied the Philippine National Police (PNP) with over 8100 assault rifles from 2016 to 2017, nearly 700 units in 2017 and 4933 units in 2018 (Rojkes Dombe, 2017). According to the Philippine News Agency, the PNP plans to acquire over 17,000 new Israeli assault rifles through its collaboration with the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s (IMOD) Government to Government mode of acquisition. The News Agency has also noted that the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) has procured 600 units of Galil Ace from Israel. This is important evidence demonstrating connections between Israeli weapons and the Philippine police and drug enforcement agency which, as shown below, have committed human rights violations (Caliwan, 2019). In September 2019, Israel delivered two Hermes-450 UAVs to the Philippines. The former Philippine Secretary of National Defense, Delfin Lorenzana, said that more deliveries would be expected in 2020 (Mangosing, 2019). In September 2022, two out of nine Israeli-manufactured Shaldag patrol boats were delivered to the Philippine Navy (Boguslavsky, 2022). Israel has provided training to the PNP and its armed unit (AFP). In the context of small arms and light weapons, according to the Database of Military and Israeli Security Export (DIMSE), the Philippines uses various types of Israeli arms, including Tavor, Negev, Ace and Gilboa rifles, alongside Masada pistols, mortar and towed guns (https://dimse.info/philippines/#r + 10553 + 1 + 31). Information about Israeli small arms used by the Philippines security forces has also been gathered from photographs of its armed forces and police, which show soldiers equipped with rifles manufactured by Israeli Military Industries (Mack, 2019b). These photographs are evidence of Israeli small arms and light weapons in the hands of dubious regimes, such as Duterte’s, with poor human rights records.

During his 2018 official visit in Israel, Duterte made an unusual statement in the context of viewing Israel as a major arms supplier, in which he suggested that he had ordered the Philippine military to exclusively purchase arms from Israel due to its no restrictions policy, unlike other suppliers like the United States, Germany and even China (TOI, 2018). Thus, while the data highlights the extent of the security ties between the two countries, Duterte’s statement raises concerns regarding the potentially problematic nature of those ties, as Israeli weapons have been linked to cases of human rights abuses in the Philippines, and Israel’s arms exports to the country, alongside its policy of concealing its security ties, have been criticized.

Israel–Myanmar relations

Myanmar (then Burma) was the first Eastern country to establish diplomatic ties with Israel. Both Israel and Myanmar became independent from British rule in 1948, and Burma’s first prime minister, U Nu, was close to David Ben-Gurion, the Israeli prime minister at the time. In addition, U Nu was the first prime minister of any country to visit Israel, doing so in 1955 (Dunst, 2019). Security ties between Myanmar and Israel are long-standing, and the Myanmar army regularly sent officers to Israel to purchase arms. These security ties continued to strengthen under the security junta that ruled Myanmar between 1988 and 2011, as well as during the following decade of semi-civilian rule (Frontier, 2023).

Israel–Myanmar security ties

The security relations between Israel and Myanmar have been largely kept secret over the years, exposed only when Israeli equipment is seen in controversial actions. These ties were kept up despite Israel’s awareness of the brutal civil war in Myanmar (Burma). In fact, Israel perceived the situation as a golden opportunity for increasing its arms sales to the regime in Burma. Therefore, since the 1950s, Israel’s deep military ties with Burma, which have included arming and training the Burmese army, has a historic major role in the human rights violations committed against the Rohingya Muslims (Middle East Monitor, 2022; Tibon, 2017). The growing international criticism against Myanmar’s military operations against the Rohingya minority have led Israel’s press and public opinion to question its complicity in human rights abuses committed by Myanmar’s security forces armed with Israeli-made weapons (Dunst, 2019; Wezeman, 2019). According to Melman (2017b), Israel has been selling weapons to Myanmar for years, including listening equipment, communications gear and patrol boats, and Tar Ideals Concepts, an Israeli company, trained Myanmar Special Forces. As discussed later, this equipment was used by Myanmar’s security forces to commit large scale human rights violations against the Rohingya minority, as well as during the 2021 coup. According to Melman (2017b), although Israeli governments were ashamed of these arms deals, they continued to encourage arms dealers and arms industries to make them, using the military censor to suppress the information.

Israeli arms sales to the Philippines and Myanmar and their negative implications for human rights: a critical discussion

During an interview with the Times of Israel (Gross, 2015), the former head of the Mossad, Danny Yatom, specifically noted that “In addition to generating money for Israel. . . the arms sales can also pave the way to warmer diplomatic ties.” This statement by an Israeli official is important evidence that Israel uses arms exports to strengthen its foreign relations. Therefore, this study discusses Israeli arms diplomacy and its political interests resulting in selling weapons to countries with poor human rights records.

Israeli Arms Sales to the Philippines and their Negative Implications for Human Rights

The Philippines is a large country with more than 100 million people, listed as the 13th most populous country in the world (Johnson and Fernquest, 2018), and suffers from an extremely complex situation involving ethnic issues, extremism and criminal violence. According to Human Rights Watch (2024), the human rights situation in the Philippines remains dire amid extrajudicial killings, attacks against political activists and journalists, and abuses committed during the armed conflict with the communist insurgency. The Philippine government has increasingly constricted democratic space, using its justice system to target leftist activist groups. Within this context, in its report titled If you are poor, you are killed, Amnesty International (2017) claims that since President Duterte started his War on Drugs campaign in 2016, more than 7000 people have been killed. The report shows that many drug-related killings are extrajudicial executions directly linked to police operations, describing the War on Drugs as focusing on poor urban communities, and revealing how at least some unknown shooters are assassins paid by the police. Thus, the report established a link between Philippine official state authorities and armed persons carrying out extrajudicial killings.

According to Human Rights Watch (2020) and a report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR, A/HRC/44/22, 2020), the most conservative figures, based on official Philippine government data, suggest that since July 2016, 8663 people have been killed as part of Duterte’s War on Drugs. However, Human Rights Watch and the UNOHCHR believe that the actual number could be three times as high, and may approach 30,000 between 2016 and 2019 (Human Rights Watch, 2020). The UNHCHR report also mentions that from 2015 to 2019 at least 248 human rights defenders, legal professionals and journalists have been killed due to their work. According to a 2018 HRW report, between 2016 and 2018 the Philippine police executed approximately 12,000 people. Duterte himself offered to shoot criminals, saying I will shoot them. That’s true! If nobody would dare it, I will pull the trigger.” During his presidential campaign, Duterte said that he would kill 100,000 people in his war on drugs (Sky News, 2017). According to Sky News (2016), Duterte said that he used to tour the city of Davao’s streets as its mayor, looking for suspected criminals to shoot dead.

In November 2016, the U.S. State Department halted the planned sale of 26,000 rifles to the Philippine national police given concerns regarding human rights violations in the Philippines. According to Zengerle (2016), this news was met with disappointment among the Philippine police and government, who said that alternative suppliers would be found. The alternative found was Israeli-made weapons. Mack (2019a) has linked human rights violations committed by the Philippine national police and Israeli small arms, arguing that “Police officers and masked militiamen have been raiding the country’s poorest neighborhoods, where they execute men and young boys suspected of criminal activities or drug use.” According to Mack’s claim, the Philippine police uses Israeli-produced rifles and handguns to commit these atrocities. Mack also argues that Israel continued to sell arms to and provide military training for Duterte’s regime, “even after the ICC launched a preliminary investigation to look into suspicions of crimes against humanity.” According to Amnesty International’s (2019) critical report of Israel’s policies on arms trading, Israel continues to export arms to countries with poor human rights records, including the Philippines, unlike other Western countries, such as Canada, which in 2018 refused to sell 16 transport helicopters to the Philippines due to their possible use in internal security operations (Ljunggren, 2018). Major evidence of Israeli weapons being involved in human rights violations committed by the Philippine police is provided by the Philippine government news agency report from April 2018 (mentioned in the 2019 Amnesty International report), which states that the Philippine Drug Enforcement Unit had acquired 560 Israeli Galil guns to improve President Duterte’s War on Drugs. The Amnesty International report specifically mentions that Israeli weapons are used by the Philippine national police to commit human rights violations. Mack (2019a) argues that Israel has been exporting weapons, including Tavor, Negev and Masada handguns, to the Philippine security forces, who used them to raid the country’s poorest neighborhoods and execute civilians suspected of criminal activities or drug use. According to the Amnesty International 2019 report, in February 2018 the city of Bacolod police force received Israeli Tavor 95X submachine guns from the district police to bring its war on drugs to the required level. Pictures of Filipino police armed with Israeli Tavor rifles and Negev machine guns (Ahren, 2018; Atkins, 2018) are considered evidence, since the Philippine national police serve as an assault force used during the War on Drugs.

To sum, there is significant evidence of the role of Israeli equipment in some major cases of human rights violations committed by the Philippine security forces during Duterte’s War on Drugs. Although the connection between Israel’s arms production and human rights violations in the Philippines has been revealed, it is ongoing, and this study argues that the reason for that is political rather than economic. Through its arms diplomacy, Israel hopes to strengthen its bilateral ties with the Philippines.

Israeli arms sales to Myanmar and their negative implications for human rights

The Rohingya minority’s persecution by the Myanmar authorities has led to widespread condemnation and arms embargos since the 1990s. According to Wezeman (2019), democratic values and human rights concerns play an important role in many potential suppliers’ decisions whether or not to sell arms to Southeast Asian states. Myanmar has been under a European Union (EU) arms embargo since 1990 in response to the military coup of 1988; and the United States and Canada have imposed similar restrictions (Canadian Sanctions Related to Myanmar (international.gc.ca)).However, the country has still been able to acquire weapons from other suppliers, such as, China, Russia, Ukraine and Israel (Wezeman, 2019). This was not the first time that Israel has supplied weapons to embargoed countries. In an interview with the author dated May 29, 2025, Alon Liel claimed that Israel continued to supply weapons to South Africa until 1994, despite the embargo imposed by the UN as early as 1977. Liel also argued that “We weren’t the only ones selling arms to South Africa, but we were the biggest supplier . . .” Ambassador Liel’s words provide further evidence that when it comes to the arms trade, Israel’s political and economic considerations prevail over other considerations, including human rights.

In September 2015, a Myanmar delegation that, according to Mack (2021) included war criminals, visited the Israeli defense industries. The visit was kept secret in Israel, but Myanmar military chief Min Aung Hlaing decided to publicize the visit and post photos of it on his Facebook page. During this visit, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU), and Israeli companies have since sold rifles, military training, battleships, observation and surveillance UAVs to Myanmar. Indeed, despite the UN argument that Myanmar’s army is carrying out “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” (UN doc, 2017) of the Rohingya Muslim minority, Israel refuses to stop its arms sales to the country. According to an Haaretz editorial (2017), Israel is doing so even though the European Union and the United States have both banned arms sales to Myanmar, “making it the only Western nation supplying the country with weapons..”

In an email interview with the author from April 30, 2025, Eitay Mack, an Israeli human rights lawyer working to stop Israeli military aid to regimes committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, confirmed that Israel continued to sell arms to Myanmar even after the embargo was imposed. Mack argues that we know what was transferred, to whom and when, but do not know of any photographic documentation of the actual use of the weapon. According to Mack “This is not unique to weapons from Israel or Myanmar and the Philippines, there is usually no photographic documentation of massacres and killings. The victims are also not familiar with the types of weapons. Historically, victims around the world have pointed out in different countries Uzi and Galil guns that are easy to recognize in terms of their unique shape..” Mack (2021) also noted that following strong public and media pressure, Israeli security companies ceased to operate in Myanmar in early 2018, but Israeli security equipment remains in the country, and despite the change in its arms export policy, Israel’s political support for Myanmar “remains firm..” Yaron (2023b) claims that the US imposed sanctions on a company mediating between Israeli arms manufacturers and the junta in Myanmar, as part of a series of new sanctions against companies and individuals that helped the regime obtain military equipment and jet fuel for the Myanmar Air Force.

Another interesting testimony in the broad context of the complexity of Israel’s arms export policy to problematic regimes can be found in the words Alon Liel, in an interview with the author from May 29, 2025, according to which: “There were certainly endless discussions in the governmental system on the issue of arms trade, and it was even decided to add a Foreign Ministry official to the committee of the security system that approved the export of weapons abroad..” Liel continued: “My personal experience mainly concerned the export of arms to South Africa and Zimbabwe. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs objected to the sales from mid-1986 but they continued..” In regard to Myanmar and the Philippines, Liel argued that “These cases, contrary to the case of South Africa, do not cause widespread image damage to Israel, as they do not arouse public interest, as in the South African case..”

Against the backdrop of the Rohingya’s persecution and ethnic cleansing by Myanmar’s security forces and the EU arms embargo, the Myanmar ambassador to Israel, U Maung Lynn, stated in a rare 2017 television interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v = mtGVNuO_ey8) that he was unaware of Israel’s restrictions on how the weapons it sells to Myanmar could be used. The ambassador also noted that “The [Israeli] government asked me for some clarifications. I came to explain, but they only listened. No comments.” The ambassador admitted that Myanmar purchased weapons from Israel to circumvent the European Union’s arms embargo, and that Israel has not imposed any conditions or restraints on the use of the weapons sold to Myanmar.

In another 2017 interview, this time to Israel’s Army Radio, the ambassador stated that Israel had continued to sell arms to Myanmar (Gross, 2017b). This is an interesting claim, as it was reported that the Israeli Defense Minister (Avigdor Liberman) had frozen arms export licenses to Myanmar (Gross, 2017a). In 2018 a Haaretz Editorial (2018) claimed that even reports on human rights violations committed against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar “have not kept the Israeli government from cooperating with those suspected of war crimes.” According to DIMSE, Israeli arms exports from 2000 to 2017 included towed and naval guns, armed vehicles and gunboats. In addition, Israel had also trained Myanmar’s security forces, shared intelligence and provided cybersecurity systems to Myanmar.

According to a UN special report (A/HRC/42/CRP.3; Human Rights Council, 2019), Israel (alongside India, North Korea, China, the Philippines, Russia and Ukraine) has been selling weapons to Myanmar’s security forces since 2016, ”at a time when it should have known that the weapons would be used in the commission of serious crimes under international law.” The report also suggested that world leaders impose financial sanctions on security companies linked to Myanmar’s army, arguing that they could be complicit in war crimes. The report noted almost 60 foreign companies with economic ties to Myanmar’s security forces, specifically mentioning that as of 2016, 14 foreign companies, including two from Israel, had provided weapons to the Tatmadaw (Myanmar’s army), when its human rights violations against the Rohingya minority had already been publicized. The report listed Israeli Aerospace Industries, which “delivered two attack frigates to the Tatmadaw navy” in April 2017. According to Selth (2019), this deal is part of a broader security connection between Israel and Myanmar. The report also mentioned that “In October 2016, an Israeli military and police equipment and training company, TAR Ideal Concepts, posted photographs on its website of its personnel training the Tatmadaw Special Operations Task Force” (p. 58). This demonstrates that Israel trained the Tatmadaw forces while the military ’clearance operations’ against the Rohingya minority had already begun (in October 2016). According to the Human Rights Council (2019) report (p. 5),

The public record made it clear that the Tatmadaw used many of the types of arms and related equipment that these entities were providing to commit gross violations of human rights and serious violations of international humanitarian law. Many of these companies and states therefore knew, or ought to have known, that their arms transfers could have a direct and reasonably foreseeable impact on the human rights situation in Myanmar.

This is major evidence connecting Israeli arms to human rights abuses committed by Myanmar’s national security forces.

Beyond the human rights violations committed against the Rohingya (killing thousands and causing more than 700,000 to flee to Bangladesh since 2017 [BBC News, 2022]), the Tatmadaw has killed hundreds of protesters, including children, since it overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government in its 2021 coup. According to an Amnesty International (2022) report, the authorities responded to the demonstrations with brutality, with the army and the police opening fire on protesters and arresting political figures, activists and journalists. The report also noted that Amnesty International documented artillery/mortar attacks on March 2022, killing or injuring civilians and damaging civilian targets. DIMSE reported that Israel sold an M-67 towed gun to Myanmar’s army, and it is not unlikely Israeli weapons were responsible for at least some of the injuries to civilians. The report concluded that since seizing power during the February 2021 coup, Myanmar’s security forces have committed massive human rights violations.

The International Crisis Group (2021) has reported that Tatmadaw has launched indiscriminate attacks on populated areas and tens of thousands of civilians have fled into the forest, with the regime’s security forces blocking relief from reaching them. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a human rights group, more than 4200 civilians have been killed by the regime’s security forces since the military coup began on February 1, 2021 (https://aappb.org/?p = 26847). According to an Amnesty International (2021) report, many of the protesters were shot in the head while civilians were randomly shot in their houses and others tortured during interrogations. In addition, a BBC news report noted that the Tatmadaw carried out a mass killing of civilians in 2021 (Henschke et al., 2021). It is not impossible that at least some of these actions were carried out using Israeli weapons, as according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israel continued to sell weapons to Myanmar’s army until at least early 2022. The report states that two Israeli defense export companies, the Israel Aerospace Industries and Elbit Systems, have maintained their arms sales to Myanmar despite an international arms embargo (Yaron, 2023a). The Tatmadaw also used an Israeli-made armored vehicle during the military coup (Kabir, 2021), providing an example of Israeli weapons involvement in human rights violations in Myanmar. Another evidentiary piece of information concerning the involvement of Israeli weapon in cases of human rights violations in Myanmar can be found in the Global Defense Corp (2021) report, which states that three Israeli defense companies suspected of violating the international arms embargo against Myanmar still supplied the country with arms, spare parts and military equipment, including drones.

Discussion and conclusion

This article discusses the importance of arms sales in Israel’s relations with the Philippines and Myanmar, demonstrating that security cooperation plays a major role in Israel’s ties with these countries. However, the study’s primary finding is that the issue of human rights played only a marginal role in Israel’s decisions to engage in arms trading with these nations. It seems that Israel follows the pattern of other Western countries that similarly prioritize foreign relations and economic gains over human rights considerations. Indeed, according to the international relations literature, political and economic interests often drive Western countries’ arms sales policies (Blanton, 2005; Perkins and Neumayer, 2010). According to Alon Liel, the cases of the Philippines and Myanmar did not cause significant image damage to Israel, as the extent of their public exposure in the United States, Western Europe or Canada was partial at best, in contrast to the great interest the world showed in South Africa, which led to the imposition of broad global sanctions.

Israel’s arms policies can be contextualized together with other Western arms exporters, but at the same time it constitutes a unique case as a relatively small but technologically advanced arms producer. This corresponds with Shymanska and Heo (2022), who have considered it to be a middle power that has significantly raised the international status of its growing arms industry, becoming one of the largest Western arms exporters worldwide. Israel is also unique in this regard, as Israeli governments traditionally choose arms sale to promote ties with developing countries in the hope of gaining their political support at the UNGA. While it is true that most UN bodies cannot enforce resolutions, and that UN member states strive for legitimacy within the UN’s voting processes, following the consistent trend of constant criticism, Israel must continue its efforts to gain legitimacy and political support in UN bodies. Thus, compared to other UN member states, the uniqueness of the Israeli case stems from the complex Israel-UN relations, and Israel’s attempt to influence UN voting patterns is driven by its image as the ‎country most discriminated against in the UN arena (Muravchik, 2013; Salman, 2024; Schifter, 2006). Thus, it is possible to understand Israel’s constant attempt to gain political support in the UN, using arms diplomacy as one of its major tools to do so. However, with the exception of a few cases, Israel’s arms sales generally have failed to promote a positive voting pattern at the UNGA (Salman, 2023). these patterns are influenced by a wide range of geopolitical, economic and regional interests, and it appears that arms importing countries make a distinction between having security ties with Israel and supporting it in the UNGA. This raises questions about the use of security ties and arms diplomacy as a tool to promote Internation relations.

Israel’s ties with the Philippines and Myanmar stem from Israeli political interests and are further developed through security cooperation, and the article argues that relations based on political tradeoff and arms diplomacy might eventually cast a shadow on Israel’s image as a democratic state committed to international law and human rights norms. Thus, this policy may yield negative consequences regarding Israel’s prestige as a Western state, particularly when it actively supports regimes connected directly to extensive human right abuses, such as in the case of the Philippines and Myanmar.

The article has shown that from the War on Drugs in the Philippines to the Rohingya persecution and political coup in Myanmar, Israeli weapons have been used to commit massive human rights violations. As previously referenced in this study, the human rights literature suggests that governments tend to ignore the record of human rights abuses of the regimes to which they sell weapons (Bitzinger, 1994; Erickson, 2013; Gallea, 2023). This study examined this assumption through an analysis of the Israeli, Philippine and Myanmar cases, concluding that security cooperation plays a major role in promoting their ties but increases the criticism of Israel as a democratic state.

The selling of arms to human rights abusive regimes, as shown in this article, has a policy implication: it can provide support to journalists, activists and human rights organizations which oppose such sales in their struggle to minimize it as much as possible. Since the study’s primary goal was to analyze the question of responsibility for human rights abuses in the Israeli case, it could support human rights activists such as Eitai Mack, an Israeli human rights lawyer working to stop Israeli security aid to regimes committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, or Amnesty International Israel’s public actions to stop Israel’s support of regimes with poor human rights records. As discussed above, human rights activism did affect Israeli arms sales and security cooperations with Myanmar. This indicates the importance of the work of human rights activists and, as in the case of Israel and Myanmar, if this trend intensifies it may encourage Western governments to be more transparent and accountable regarding their arms deals worldwide. This could put pressure on Israel, as a democratic state, to carefully regulate its arms sales. Future research may analyze other Western countries’ arms exports to other regimes with poor human rights records in various regions of the world, and examine the connection between the sale of major weapons, such as planes or surveillance equipment, and human rights violations.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Yaron Salman

Author biography

Yaron Salman (Ph.D) is a Faculty Member in the Department of Political Science at The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, Israel. His research topics include Israel Studies; Israel’s arms diplomacy; Israel’s normalization with Gulf states.

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