A five-member Ministerial Committee to draft a new arms sale policy for the Israeli Government, so as to prevent foreign governments purchasing Israeli arms from using these weapons to help maintain colonial regimes, was named here today by Israel’s Cabinet.
The issue grew out of recent unfounded reports–denied both here and at Bonn–that West Germany had sold to Portugal some of the “Uzi” submachineguns bought here by Germany. Portugal had allegedly used these Israeli weapons to help suppress the independence movement in Angola, Africa. The new committee, proposed by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, consists of Finance Minister Levi Eshkol as chairman, and includes Foreign Minister Golda Meir; Minister of the Interior Moshe Shapira; Yitzhak Ben-Abaron, Minister of Transport and Communications; and Minister of Health Israel Barzilai.
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