Alleged Hamas-China arms deal dismissed

• Source: The Global Times
• [07:37 April 29 2009]
• Comments

By Sun Wei

A report entitled “Hamas agents ordered weapons from China” published yesterday by the World Tribune newspaper has been described as “unjustified” by two Chinese scholars.

“China has no connection with Hamas in political, economic or military aspects,” Yin Gang, a researcher with the Institute of West Asia and Africa at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

The report claimed Israel has evidence that the Hamas leadership has been ordering weapons and military equipment directly from China.

“The evidence it offered is not convincing,” Yin said.

The report also claims that Israeli officials said Hamas has been using agents from Europe, Israel and the West Bank to help facilitate the Chinese weapons procurement.

Saadi Jamjum, a 33-year-old Palestinian car dealer from the West Bank city of Hebron, was indicted Sunday on charges of trying to purchase weapons for Hamas from China.

The indictment said Jamjum was asked by a Hamas agent, identified as Raid Abu Hatlah, to purchase 60 telescopic rifle sights, 2,000 M-16 rifle magazines, 2,000 additional gun clips, 1,000 radios, 400 mobile phones and dozens of listening devices.

“China no longer produces the weapons mentioned, such as the American-type M-16 rifle,” Yin said, adding that “Iran has the capability of producing the weapons suspected of being made in China,” and other weapons they bought could be smuggled via Southeast Asia.

Zhang Zhaozhong, a professor with National Defense University, told the Global Times, “Some people take advantage of the illicit third-party arms trade; others produce and sell copycat arms, which are similar in appearance to the original ones,” he explained. “China would never engage in the arms trade with either side of any two belligerent parties,” Zhang added.

The report claims that Jamjun planned to purchase thousands of dollars’ worth of toys from a Chinese factory, as the Chinese weapons “were to be shipped to the Gaza Strip via cargo registered as toys.”

“There are no channels to enter the Gaza Strip from China,”Yin pointed out, adding that the legal channel to enter the Gaza Strip would either be via Israel or Jordan.

“It is illogical that China would be interested in the meager profit margin of the light weapons trade at the risk of damaging the good Sino-Israeli relations,” Zhang added.