Japan is a great geographical distance from Israel’s killing fields in Gaza. But the nature of the global supply chain is bringing Israel’s genocidal assault into Japan’s orbit. Japan BDS, the local formation of the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestine, is claiming a special responsibility to end Japanese robot makers’ complicity in Israel’s campaign of extermination.

At the beginning of 2024, Shir Hever, international coordinator of the military embargo campaign for the BDS movement, alerted Japan BDS that Japanese industrial robots being marketed globally to auto and medical equipment manufacturers were also being used in Israel’s weapons factories. Hever told Truthout this revelation merited the robots’ reclassification as a “dual-use” item — meaning that it can be used in both civilian and military contexts. Activists are targeting exports of dual-use items, like more easily identifiable weaponry, noting that their sales to Israel as it conducts its genocide could be in violation of international law. But, Hever added, there are inherent complications.

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