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Izvestia Charges South African Government Exporting Tanks to Israel

January 20, 1970
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The Soviet Government organ Izvestia, charged Sunday that the South African Government has begun to organize the export of tanks to Israel, marking “a new stage of their cooperation.” The paper says the South African tank is a 65-ton giant “armed with a heavy gun and designed according to the model of the British new tank.” This is an apparent reference to Britain’s new Chieftain tank which Israel has been trying to buy but which the British Government will not allow to be sold to Israel.

The paper accused the United States, Britain, the Federal German Republic and Japan of helping in the military buildup of South Africa and said “the close economic ties” between the South African Republic and these powers were in violation of United Nations General Assembly resolutions. It said that both Israel and South Africa “have much in common both in their aggressive foreign policy as well as in their views on the internal situation in each of the countries. Whereas the Pretoria racialists preach apartheid, their Israeli colleagues are seized with blind hatred for the Arab peoples.”

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