This is how Israel is helping Myanmar slaughter Muslims

Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims have been slaughtered by the Myanmar military in the past week, with children reportedly being beheaded and burnt alive - and it is no surprise that Israel has a hand in it.

According to Middle East Eye (MEE), Israeli companies have sold weapons to Myanmar and taken part in training its special forces in the Rakhine state, where most of the violence is occurring.

"Successive Israeli governments have been selling arms to the military dictatorship in Burma for years," human rights activist Ofer Neiman told MEE. 

"This policy is strongly related to Israel's oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian people. Weapons used against the Palestinians are being sold as 'field-tested' to some of the worst regimes on the planet."

Citing human rights groups and Burmese officials, MEE reports that Israel has supplied the Myanmar regime with over 100 tanks, arms, and boats for guarding the country's border.

Additionally, Israeli arms companies have reportedly trained Burmese special forces in the Rakhine state.

For instance, TAR Ideal Concepts, headed by former Israel Police Commissioner Shlomo Aharonishki, is believed to have instructed "members of the Burmese special forces on combat tactics and how to use specific weapons," according to left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

In light of the trades between the two countries, Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces, visited Israel in September 2015 on a "shopping trip" of Israeli weapons.

Head of the Defense Ministry’s International Defense Cooperation Directorate, Michel Ben-Baruch, headed to Myanmar that same summer. His trip saw the heads of junta purchase Israeli Super Dvora patrol boats, among other military equipment. 

Human rights activists in Israel have launched a petition calling on Israel’s High Court of Justice to enforce a ban on arms exports to Myanmar. 

Israel's Defense Ministry is refusing to halt weapon sales and has contended that the court has no jurisdiction on the matter, claiming that it is "clearly diplomatic".

The High Court of Justice is set to issue a ruling in late September.

Myanmar, formerly Burma, has seen what the United Nations has equated to ethnic cleansing against the country's Muslim minority.

The Rohingya Muslim community lives in widespread poverty and faces constant discrimination and persecution from the Buddhist majority population. Tens of thousands have fled as refugees, mainly to Bangladesh.

The community has been subject to persecution for centuries, but the recent wave of violence began in October 2016, after nine Myanmar policemen were killed in attacks on security posts near the Bangladesh border.

Police said members of armed Rohingya groups were behind the attacks.

The violence is ongoing in the state of Rakhine, home to some 1.1 million Rohingya people. While authorities in Myanmar say the number of dead is around 100, activists say at least 800 have been killed. 

Officially, the military says the operation is intended to crack down on terrorism, but the indiscriminate killings suggest otherwise.

The Myanmar government does not provide the Muslim-minority community legal recognition, considering them to be illegal immigrants despite the fact that they have lived in the country for generations.