Israel Aerospace Industries' ghost drone. (Photo: Noga Nedler Moses/Haaretz)
Earlier this month, two Israeli weapons producers signed "mega deals" with "unnamed" countries, exporting a crucial piece of the occupation -- drones. The companies, Elbit Systems Ltd., known as the IDF “workhorse,” and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), both sold drones, with the latter also unloading missiles and intelligence systems.
The deals: Elbit collected $50 million from an unnamed country for drones sold to a "governmental office of a country in the Americas." Not to be outdone, IAI cut a deal for $1.6 billion, their largest contract ever, also from an “unnamed country.” Giving some clues as to who purchased the weapons, IAI let on the confidential client was an Asian government. Israeli business journal Globes followed up on secret deal with an unnamed source, reporting:
[T]his is the first time that the country has signed a contract with IAI, a fact which itself indicates the complexity of the deal and the need or confidence building measures by the parties.
Elbit's drone ground control station. (Photo: Elbit Systems)
As an new client, the deal excludes the possibility of the U.S., India, Brazil, Columbia, and Chile, all of which, in the past five years, began purchasing weapons tested in the occupation. And at times, Israeli weapons producers fight dirty in order to win government contracts. In 2010 letters surfaced indicating Elbit bribed the government of Colombia in an attempt to steal the billion-dollar deal from IAI.
A special relationship with the IDF
Taking the occupation global is only part of the weapons producers’ mandate. At their core, they operate to build the military apparatus controlling the occupied Palestinian territories. Both companies make clear on their websites that they produce and design specifically to further the IDF’s goals.
IAI’s company profile reads: "IAI has accumulated nearly half a century of experience in creating and supplying advanced systems for the Israel Ministry of Defense." IAI is wholly owned by the state of Israel, and dovish Shimon Peres is one of the co-founders.
As for Elbit, the press release from their latest sale boasts their drones serve as “the backbone of the Israel Defense Forces' UAS[Unmanned Aircraft Systems] operations.” Furthermore, the press release notes the weapons were designed, “following orders by the Israeli Defense Forces.”
Just a reminder that there is money to be made from the laboratory of the Israeli occupation.
In the good old days ‘justice from the air’ came at the hands of some sort of deity, nowadays ‘justice from the air’ rains down out of the sweaty palms of a likewise faceless drone’s controller. Oh, g*d, what has become of us?
Isn’t this an example of the futility of the BDS movement? How long will it take the BDS movement to inflict 1.6 billion $ worth of damage on Israel’s economy, and doesn’t the willingness of diverse countries to prefer business calculations undercut the entire project? As you yourself point out, the connection with the IDF seems hardly to faze countries looking for the best deal in military hardware if that deal is to be had in Israel.
winnica, the best evidence the bds movement is not futile is the energy and resources invested to squash it. like you wasting your time here.
Im not trying to squash BDS, Annie, and if I were this blog wouldn’t be the place to do so, seeing how its hardest-core suppoters congregate here. No, as I’ve said already elsewhere, I’m here to understand. The community of this website has a pristine sort of Weltanschauung, which I’ve been following for a number of years; my questioning is merely an attempt to plumb their (your) thought patterns.
Good reporting, Allison.
I don’t know if it’s really a new development, historically, but fascism (as in building up a heavy police state, targeted at not just real criminals, but at civil protesters as well) is an international, global phenomenon. Just like the protest against it. The repressing fascists are connected via think tanks, meetings, and business deals. The counter-movement is connected mainly via the internet and word of mouth.
Not long ago Gentiles developed weapons and tested them on Jews. Today it’s the other way around.
it looks like stupid Gentiles are helping to build (with their money) the cage that is going to contain them .
Veru good video. A must see.
Share it wherever possible
“How the media manipulates the world into war”
link to youtube.com
thanks for the report allison
What Winnica surely doesn’t now to be unashamedly bragging like this, is that the early testing of the Israeli and American drones were done on the defenseless southern Lebanese people during Israel’s occupation that ended in 2000. Further testing for drones and other weapons like white phosphorus, depleted uranium and DIME bombs was done again on Gaza and Lebanon in 2006 and of course in 2008 during Cast Lead. Nothing to brag about.