How are Bosnia's Serbs getting Israeli arms?

Israeli officials don't deny foreign press reports that Bosnian Serbs
have regularly fired Israeli-made shells at Sarajevo and use Israeli
light weapons. The only dispute is over how the weaponry gets there:
Pro-Bosnian activists here charge government support of Serbia: officials
blame third parties.

"The Serbs have large quantities of Israeli arms, and they couldn't
have gotten there without the Israeli authorities being aware," charges
Daniel Kofman, a Hebrew University lecturer who heads the Israel Public
Committee for Bosnia.

Responds a spokesman for overseeing Israeli arms sales abroad: "We
strictly observe the U.N. embargo and have not sold any weapons there"
since the U.N. announced the ban on sales to the combatants in April
1992 [sic].

A foreign Ministry spokesman adds: "We're not responsible for how
arms move around once they leave Israel". And Ori Orr, chairman of
the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, concurs: "It could
only happen through some private channels, once the arms have left
Israel."

"We don't take sides in the conflict", insists the Foreign Ministry
spokesman, adding: "Because of anti-Semitic sentiments in (Croat
president) Franjo Tudjmans's book and the Hizballah-Iran help to the
Muslims, you may draw the conclusion where our sympathies lie".

Kofman responds that "Israel generally does keep track of what happens
to its arms. So how can they say they don't know what happens to them
once they reach the international market?"

Hebrew University professor Igor Primorac, who taught philosophy
in Belgrade before coming here a decade ago, agrees with Kofman.
"Belgrade papers regularly report on Isreli arms shipments", he
says, "and it's not far from Serbia to Bosnia. Maybe it's not
official, but the pro-Serbian slant of the Israeli political leadership
is clear: The government has never condemned the killing of Muslims
or Croats."

 By Tom Sawicki