Israel Freezes Export of Assault Rifles to U.S.

The Israeli government, responding to a widening controversy in the United States over assault weapons that have been modified to evade U.S. law, on Tuesday slapped a 90-day moratorium on the export of Uzi and Galil assault rifles to America.

The decision appears to most immediately affect the pending shipment of 2,600 Galils to the United States; the Galils were to have arrived later this year.

Jonathan Mossberg, who represents the American firm that had received permission from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to import the Uzis and Galils, believes the action is unwarranted.

“We worked very closely not to skirt the law but to comply with it,” Mossberg said Tuesday.

Mossberg, who has been in contact with federal authorities in recent days, surmised that the Israeli government may be taking the action to “score points” with the Clinton administration, which is weighing a wider ban on the import of modified assault weapons from several countries.

Thirty U.S. senators and several members of the House have urged Clinton to temporarily suspend imports of all foreign semiautomatic assault weapons until it is clear that such weapons comply with U.S. firearms laws. In the meantime, Clinton has directed that no more applications for import licenses be granted. That directive has temporarily stopped Mossberg from bringing in about 5,000 Uzis.

In a letter delivered to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Israeli Ambassador Eliahu Ben-Elissar said his government would use the 90-day period to “work with” Feinstein “to resolve the matter.” The ambassador emphasized that Israel had done nothing to violate U.S. law, and expressed concern that Israel not be singled out, as numerous foreign countries export modified, military-style assault weapons to the United States.

“This matter reached the highest levels of government,” said Gadi Baltiansky, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington. “It’s a goodwill gesture.”

The letter to Feinstein indicated that if during the 90-day period other countries suspend sales of modified assault weapons to America, then Israel would do likewise.

In a carefully worded written response, Feinstein termed the Israeli action “a tentative step forward.”

The announcement comes six weeks after Feinstein sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging him to personally intervene and cancel the pending arms deal between a state-owned munitions factory and O.F. Mossberg & Sons Inc., a well-known Connecticut gun manufacturer. Feinstein believes the Uzis and Galils have been altered to get around the 1994 restrictions on assault weapons, but still do not have a legitimate “sporting purpose,” as is required by the 1968 Gun Control Act.

The California Democrat has appealed to the leaders of Russia, Bulgaria, Greece, Egypt, Poland and Romania, asking that they voluntarily “cease and desist” in their plans to export modified assault weapons to the United States from state-owned gun factories.

The proliferation of so-called copycat assault weapons made both in the U.S. and abroad, and the pending Israeli gun transaction were recently detailed in a Times series on glaring flaws in state and federal assault weapon laws.