My attempt to arrest Israeli weapons chief

This morning I tried to arrest an Israeli military strategist over his development of weapons intended for use in killing Palestinians.

Yitzhak Ben-Israel, a former head of research in both Israel’s army and its defense ministry, was standing outside a meeting room in a luxurious Brussels hotel when I arrived shortly after nine o’clock. Initially, I walked past him and approached the registration desk for the “terrorism technology” conference at which he was speaking.

“Good morning,” I said to a woman behind the desk. “My name is Cronin.”

A man in a dark suit then approached me. “Cronin?” he said. “You are David?” (I hadn’t given my first name).

“That’s right,” I replied. He and the woman flicked through the registration list for the event and told me that my name wasn’t on it. When I explained that I had sent an email message to the organisers last week expressing my wish to attend, they responded that it was a private event. “But it is funded by the European Union. And it was publicly announced on the internet,” I said.

The conversation continued in that vein for a moment or two, when the man said to me, “You want the police? We have the police.” (I hadn’t asked for the police).

I looked behind me and saw two other men. “Are you from the hotel’s security?” I asked. “No, we are Belgian intelligence,” one of them replied.

“That man over there is Mr Ben-Israel,” I said, pointing to him. “I have come here to make a citizen’s arrest of that man. Mr Ben-Israel, you are charged with crimes against humanity. I invite you to present yourself to these police officers here.”

DIME role


One of the officers asked me to identify myself. “My name is Dave Cronin, I am a freelance journalist,” I said. “I believe that Mr Ben-Israel has developed weapons for the express purpose of killing Palestinians.”

I tried to elaborate but the two policemen were already taking me down the stairs. In the hotel lobby, they asked me for my ID card and wrote down my contact details. I requested that they take a statement from me, explaining why Ben-Israel should be arrested. Although they agreed to listen to my argument, they refused to take a formal statement, telling me instead to visit a police station.

A retired major-general, Ben-Israel has been involved in developing some of the nastiest weapons in Israel’s arsenal. There is prima facie evidence that he provided his expertise to an Israeli team that have adapted the US-made weapon DIME (Dense Inert Metal Explosive) for use in Gaza. In 2006, Ben-Israel indicated he was privy to the testing of DIME, which slices off limbs and causes severe burns. He praised the weapon in an interview with Italian television, stating that “one of the ideas is to allow those targeted to be hit without causing damage to bystanders or other persons.”

Testimonies gathered from hospitals in Gaza when Israel attacked the Strip in late 2008 and early 2009 told of how unusual metals were found in the bodies of bomb victims. These indicate that DIME may have been used during that three-week assault, Operation Cast Lead.

Ben-Israel has won three national defense awards in Israel for helping to invent weapons. In 1972, he was honored for his role in realizing a bombing system for F-4E warplanes supplied to Israel by the US arms firm McDonnell Douglas. Four years later, he won a similar prize for his contribution to a C4 system to help commanders manage a range of operations. And in 2002, he bagged the Israel Defense Award for “a project introducing a new concept of future warfare.”

Rejoicing in murder

A member of the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) from 2007 and 2009, he was an enthusiastic supporter of Cast Lead. In a 2009 opinion piece for the news website Ynet, he celebrated how Israel had departed from the rules of armed combat it used to play by (according to him). “Previously, it appeared as though the weak side (Hamas, Hezbollah) could attack Israeli citizens uninterruptedly, while Israel hesitates in utilizing its substantial military power (airplanes, tanks, and guided missiles) for fear of hurting civilians on the other side,” he wrote. “Yet the recent operation showed that even mosques used by terror groups are no longer an obstacle in the face of Israel using its military power.”

It is nauseating that someone who exults in the mass murder of civilians can be a guest at an EU-sponsored conference. As I wrote earlier this week, another crime committed by Ben-Israel is that he sits on the board of trustees for Ariel University, which is located in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. The EU’s representatives know well that such settlements violate the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which forbid an occupying power from transferring its civilian population into a territory that it occupies.

Ben-Israel looked slightly puzzled when I confronted him today. He has probably not encountered previous attempts to hold him accountable for his crimes. Well, he will have to get used to those efforts. Wherever he and other members of Israel’s political and military elite go, they can expect to face demands for justice.

●First published by The Electronic Intifada, 8 December 2011.

Settler "professor" top attraction at EU-Israel science show

A weapons inventor representing an illegal Israeli settlement will participate in an EU-sponsored conference on scientific research later this week.

Yitzhak Ben-Israel, a retired major-general, is among the speakers listed on the programme for Thursday’s event on “technology terrorism” in Brussels. He is a member of the board of trustees in Ariel University, which is located on occupied land in the West Bank. His resumé also states that he has headed the research divisions of both the Israeli military and its Ministry of Defense.

Although Israel is an active participant in the EU’s science programme, the Union says that firms and universities based in the settlements are not eligible for the programme’s research grants. So I asked the European Commission if it had any difficulties with Ben-Israel’s role in this week’s event, considering his links to Ariel. “To the best of our knowledge, Mr Ben-Israel does not have any direct role in the [‘technology terrorism’] project, apart from being a speaker at the workshop,” Carlo Corazza, a Commission spokesman, replied.

That lame response cannot be allowed conceal how the EU is ingratiating itself with Israel’s military and political elite. Ben-Israel is regarded as an important strategist on “defense” issues and has received several awards for his work. He has been credited with developing a “C4 system” (to help commanders manage a range of operations) for the Israeli military, as well as Nautilus, a laser system designed to counteract the crude rockets that Hamas and other resistance groups have fired from Gaza and that Hezbollah have fired from Lebanon. Furthermore, he has served on the board of directors for Israel Aerospace Industries, a maker of warplanes used to slaughter Gaza civilians during Operation Cast Lead in 2008 and 2009. And I almost forgot to add that he has been a member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, for Kadima, the party set up by that mass murderer Ariel Sharon.

Selective focus on violence

Thursday’s event marks the culmination of a €1 million ($1.3 million) project called FESTOS (Foresight of Evolving Security Threats Posed by Emerging Technologies). While most of the money for FESTOS comes from the EU taxpayer, the project is being coordinated by Yair Sharan from Tel Aviv University.

In a newsletter published in February, Sharan said the aim of the project is to assess how “terrorists” are availing of technology and to recommend what policy measures should be taken in response. “New technological horizons are opened to individuals and groups who are ready to abuse technology to accomplish their evil purposes,” he wrote.

It is probably superfluous to add that the project is highly selective. It only examines violence perpetrated in response to oppression and not the routine violence of oppressor states like Israel.

Corazza tried to justify the project by saying that “FESTOS is not about developing weapons.” He added that developing weapons is not allowed by the EU’s scientific research activities as they belong to a “civilian programme.”

Don’t be fooled by that assurance. No matter what EU officials say, the Union is helping to nurture a “security” industry in Israel that is inseparable from that country’s military and its crimes against humanity.

Last week The Financial Times published a feature about Israel’s technology prowess. It was a piece of thinly-veiled propaganda by the paper’s correspondent Tobias Buck, yet it nonetheless underscored how many of the big shots in Israel’s technology sector were trained in Unit 8200, an electronic espionage division of the Israeli military.

Israel is taking part in 800 EU research projects at the moment, with a total value of €4.3 billion. As a European taxpayer, I don’t recall ever being asked for permission to fund a war machine that is an affront to everything I believe in.

●First published by The Electronic Intifada, 6 December 2011.