Israeli Cluster Bombs in Australian Arsenals?

I was born/ Between factory walls/ And I was conceived/ Amongst the ivory halls/ And in this world/ I knew my role/ I went to work/ With a single goal

I traveled the earth/ To far-off lands/ From the Asian jungles/ To the African sands/ I flew in planes/ Of camouflage green/ Before I settled/ Upon this scene

Like a shooting star/ I came to rest/ And this farmer's field/ Is where I nest/ Just watching the seasons/ Come and go/ Watching the long grass/ Grow and grow

Years go by/ And I lay here still/ For my purpose is clear/ For me to fulfill/ The sun was out/ It was the middle of May/ When the farmer's 3 children/ Came out to play

They ventured near/ I lay in wait/ One unknowing step/ Sealed their fate/ One thousand shards/ Of plastic rose/ From where I lay/ And through their clothes

Into their bodies/ The shrapnel sank/ Here in this field/ By a river bank/ The blood poured down/ Shone in the sun/ And one cluster bomblet's/ Job was done

David Rovics: Ballad of the Cluster Bomb

On 22/2/08 Australia signed the Wellington Declaration, a draft international agreement to ban the use of cluster bombs, which scatter deadly bomblets over a wide area. As singer/songwriter, David Rovics' poignant lyrics so graphically show, those little nasties which do not explode on impact can lie in wait, unexploded, for years after a conflict has ended, killing or maiming anyone who accidentally disturbs them.

But Australia, being Australia, just had to have reservations now, didn't it? Apparently, we tried to water down the proposed treaty on the grounds that a) it could get in the way of our working with countries who oppose the treaty, such as the US [China, India, Pakistan, Russia, and Israel also oppose the treaty]; b) we need our own supplies of the little bastards "for training and research purposes"; and c) something called a "sensor-fuse cluster munition" should be excluded from the definition of what constitutes a cluster bomb. (Aust signs anti-cluster bomb declaration, ABC News, 22/2/08)

So far, so good. If Howard had won last year's election, not only would we not have signed up, but the Australian Defence Forces (ADF) might have been buying cluster bombs... from Israel. That's right, the country whose army rained over 1.2 million cluster bomblets over south Lebanon in the final days of the 33-Day War in 2006, causing one Israeli 'Defence' Forces commander to comment: "What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs." (Israel fired more than a million cluster bombs in Lebanon, Meron Rappaport, Haaretz, 12/9/06)

A Senate committee last year had found a submission from Israel Military Industries (IMI), the government-owned corporation that is Israel's largest weapons manufacturer, sufficiently persuasive to open the way for the ADF's acquisition of Israel's M85 cluster weapon, which, according to IMI's sales pitch, "had a hazardous dud rate of 0.06%, compared with similar American cluster devices with dud rates between 2-23%." (Australian Army eyes controversial Israeli cluster bombs, The Australian Jewish News, 15/6/07)

The question arises: were any Israeli M85s purchased prior to the fall of the Howard regime, and, if so, would this not explain Australia's desire to retain supplies of same for "training and research purposes?" And is the M85 a "sensor-fuse cluster munition?"

The final treaty is to be negotiated in Dublin in May. It will be most interesting to see what Australia's position will be at that conference.