Israel’s war machine may be recruited to stop impoverished foreigners from reaching the European Union.
A pilotless drone manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) recently took part in a demonstration exercise organized by Frontex, the EU’s border management agency, in Greece. A statement issued by IAI indicates that the drone (or unmanned aerial vehicle, UAV) in question belonged to the Heron range, which was used extensively during Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s three-week assault on Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009. Frontex has put out a call for tenders on drones that can help it identify boats carrying migrants en route to Europe.
Nonchalant attitude to war crimes
This morning I contacted Frontex headquarters in Warsaw, Poland, to ask why it is considering the purchase of warplanes from a company known to have profited from crimes against humanity. “[EU] member states are interested in surveillance technology,” Frontex spokeswoman Ewa Moncure replied. “So we are looking at what is out there. The fact that it has been used for other purposes cannot prevent us from looking at this technology.”
Her nonchalant attitude says much about the relationship between the EU and Israel. Human rights monitors have documented how Israeli soldiers killed 87 civilians with drones during Cast Lead, illustrating how they were one of the main weapons in an offensive that left around 1,300 Palestinians dead. When Herons are the tools of oppression and occupation, it is not acceptable for an official EU body to claim that they have been used merely for “other purposes.”
Business as usual for EU-Israel relations
A few weeks ago, there was a minor ripple of excitement when a paper drawn up by EU diplomats based in East Jerusalem and Ramallah was leaked. It argued that the Union should take steps to prevent the money of European taxpayers from helping the expansion of Israeli settlements.
IAI’s subsidiary Tamam provided equipment installed in Israel’s apartheid wall in the West Bank. As one of the objectives of that monstrosity is to ringfence settlements regarded as strategically important by Israel, the IAI would appear to be the kind of company that the EU diplomats had in mind when they implicitly complained about how the Union is greasing the palms of the occupation’s profiteers. It is significant, though, that other branches of the EU’s labyrinthine bureaucracy -- such as Frontex -- are perfectly happy to consider supporting such companies by buying their wares.
Under the EU’s treaties all of its activities are legally obliged to respect fundamental human rights. Sadly, the memo explaining that fact does not appear to have been sent to Frontex. Last year, Human Rights Watch published the findings of its investigation into the detention of almost 12,000 migrants who entered Greece at its land border with Turkey between November 2010 and March 2011. Guards working for Frontex regularly apprehended those migrants and brought them to detention facilities that were so shabby that they were condemned by the European Court of Human Rights, the report found.
Frontex assists human rights abuses
Attempting to migrate to another country is not a crime. So by taking part in such operations, Frontex assisted in the jailing of people who had not been accused of a recognizable offence. In other words, it abetted human rights abuses by criminalizing the innocent. Yet that didn’t stop the European Parliament from giving Frontex a present of €44 million in September. That sum is additional to the agency’s annual budget, which rose from €6 million in 2005 to €86 million in 2011.
IAI calls human rights workers “stupid”
I also called IAI earlier today to check if the type of Heron being assessed by Frontex was deployed in Gaza. “The Heron is used only for gathering information,” said the company’s representative Hadal Paz. When I pointed out that human rights monitors have amassed credible evidence indicating that civilians were killed with Herons in Cast Lead, Paz responded. “That fact that somebody wrote something in a stupid article doesn’t mean it is correct. I read your website [The Electronic Intifada] very carefully and a lot of the information you have there is incorrect.”
Paz did not, however, provide one specific example of any inaccurate detail in EI’s reporting.
When speaking to Moncure from Frontex, I asked her if she was aware of the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. She didn’t appear to know what I was talking about. It is vital that this knowledge gap be plugged. You can contact Frontex at this email address: frontex@frontex.europa.eu. Please let its management and staff know that shopping around for Israeli weapons is an affront to humanity, regardless of what they want to do with those weapons.
●First published by The Electronic Intifada, 13 February 2012.
Showing posts with label Israel Aerospace Industries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel Aerospace Industries. Show all posts
Monday, February 13, 2012
Monday, November 7, 2011
How EU science chief helps Israel's war industry
Ensconced in Brussels, the only controversy Máire Geoghegan-Quinn has been embroiled in over the past few years related to her bloated income. While she has displayed remarkable chutzpah in seeking to draw down both a European commissioner’s salary and Oireachtas and ministerial pensions, her personal greed is of little consequence compared to how she is abetting Israel’s crimes against humanity.
Israel is the most active non-European participant in the EU’s multi-annual scientific research programme, which Geoghegan-Quinn administers. According to the European Commission’s own data, Israel is currently involved in 800 EU-financed research activities with a total value of €4.3 billion. What the Commission is less eager to spell out is that the beneficiaries of this largesse include weapons manufacturers and technology firms that supply Israel with the tools of repression and occupation.
The Irish Times regularly publishes columns on the EU’s research activities by Conor O’Carroll from the Irish Universities Association. Because the seven universities O’Carroll represents receive funding from the EU’s science programme, he has a direct interest in presenting that programme in a positive light. Although The Irish Times is nominally committed to informed debate, its editors have told me on several occasions that they would not have space on their pages for an article explaining how Irish academics cooperate with Israel’s war industry.
Trinity College Dublin, for example, is taking part in a €14.5 million EU-financed project called Total Airport Security System (TASS), under which new surveillance equipment will be installed in Heathrow Airport ahead of next year’s Olympic Games in London. Among the other participants in the TASS consortium are Elbit, a company that has helped install surveillance equipment in the apartheid wall that Israel is building in the West Bank. Elbit was also one of two makers of the pilotless drones(or unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs) with which Israel attacked Gaza in 2008 and 2009.
Duty not to assist apartheid
When ruling that the West Bank wall was illegal, the International Court of Justice stated in 2004 that public authorities throughout the world had an obligation not to render any aid or assistance to its construction. Norway – a country outside the EU - has taken that verdict sufficiently seriously to order that its state-owned pension scheme divest from Elbit. Yet Geoghegan-Quinn and her officials continue to subsidise that same company.
The University of Limerick is involved in a €70 million project called Maaximus for developing “more affordable” aircraft than those currently in use. Other participants in this project include Israel Aerospace Industries, another firm that has worked on the West Bank wall and provided warplanes used to kill civilians in Gaza.
University College Cork, meanwhile, is trying to give credence to the Israeli myth that it is saving the world from terrorist attacks. UCC is the official coordinator of an EU-funded project called CommonSense, which is focused on developing sensors for detecting bombs containing radioactive materials. This project also involves the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Israeli Institute for Technology in Haifa. Better known as the Technion, that institute has been responsible for such innovations as a remote-controlled bulldozer, explicitly intended for use in demolishing Palestinian homes.
Geoghegan-Quinn was pressurised by the Dublin government last year into returning her pension payments to the state. She has not come under pressure from any European government to cease assisting Israel’s military industry. This dearth of scrutiny has allowed her to remain in denial about reality.
Poorly informed
She recently dismissed concerns about an EU-financed surveillance technology project that includes Motorola Israel. The aims of that project – to design sensors for detecting “intruders” who venture near buildings or resources deemed to be of critical economic importance – appear similar to those of the “virtual fences” that Motorola has placed around Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land. (Using thermal cameras, those “fences” are also designed to identify “intruders”). But when a British MEP alerted her to that similarity, Geoghegan-Quinn claimed her officials do not have “any information about any radar systems Motorola Israel might or might not have installed in the West Bank.” Her advisers should take greater care reading their email messages in future; a paper containing detailed information about Motorola’s work in the West Bank was sent to them by the Palestinian organisation Stop the Wall in May.
Geoghegan-Quinn will be kept busy in the coming months finalising plans for the next EU science programme, which is likely to have a budget of around €80 billion between 2014 and 2020. While the negotiations on the programme’s priorities remain ongoing, Israel’s participation in it has been guaranteed. This means that Geoghegan-Quinn will continue approving the allocation of grants to companies profiting from war and human rights abuses.
Why doesn’t her support for Israel attract more attention than the contents of her bank account?
●First published by Politico, 7 November 2011.
Israel is the most active non-European participant in the EU’s multi-annual scientific research programme, which Geoghegan-Quinn administers. According to the European Commission’s own data, Israel is currently involved in 800 EU-financed research activities with a total value of €4.3 billion. What the Commission is less eager to spell out is that the beneficiaries of this largesse include weapons manufacturers and technology firms that supply Israel with the tools of repression and occupation.
The Irish Times regularly publishes columns on the EU’s research activities by Conor O’Carroll from the Irish Universities Association. Because the seven universities O’Carroll represents receive funding from the EU’s science programme, he has a direct interest in presenting that programme in a positive light. Although The Irish Times is nominally committed to informed debate, its editors have told me on several occasions that they would not have space on their pages for an article explaining how Irish academics cooperate with Israel’s war industry.
Trinity College Dublin, for example, is taking part in a €14.5 million EU-financed project called Total Airport Security System (TASS), under which new surveillance equipment will be installed in Heathrow Airport ahead of next year’s Olympic Games in London. Among the other participants in the TASS consortium are Elbit, a company that has helped install surveillance equipment in the apartheid wall that Israel is building in the West Bank. Elbit was also one of two makers of the pilotless drones(or unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs) with which Israel attacked Gaza in 2008 and 2009.
Duty not to assist apartheid
When ruling that the West Bank wall was illegal, the International Court of Justice stated in 2004 that public authorities throughout the world had an obligation not to render any aid or assistance to its construction. Norway – a country outside the EU - has taken that verdict sufficiently seriously to order that its state-owned pension scheme divest from Elbit. Yet Geoghegan-Quinn and her officials continue to subsidise that same company.
The University of Limerick is involved in a €70 million project called Maaximus for developing “more affordable” aircraft than those currently in use. Other participants in this project include Israel Aerospace Industries, another firm that has worked on the West Bank wall and provided warplanes used to kill civilians in Gaza.
University College Cork, meanwhile, is trying to give credence to the Israeli myth that it is saving the world from terrorist attacks. UCC is the official coordinator of an EU-funded project called CommonSense, which is focused on developing sensors for detecting bombs containing radioactive materials. This project also involves the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Israeli Institute for Technology in Haifa. Better known as the Technion, that institute has been responsible for such innovations as a remote-controlled bulldozer, explicitly intended for use in demolishing Palestinian homes.
Geoghegan-Quinn was pressurised by the Dublin government last year into returning her pension payments to the state. She has not come under pressure from any European government to cease assisting Israel’s military industry. This dearth of scrutiny has allowed her to remain in denial about reality.
Poorly informed
She recently dismissed concerns about an EU-financed surveillance technology project that includes Motorola Israel. The aims of that project – to design sensors for detecting “intruders” who venture near buildings or resources deemed to be of critical economic importance – appear similar to those of the “virtual fences” that Motorola has placed around Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land. (Using thermal cameras, those “fences” are also designed to identify “intruders”). But when a British MEP alerted her to that similarity, Geoghegan-Quinn claimed her officials do not have “any information about any radar systems Motorola Israel might or might not have installed in the West Bank.” Her advisers should take greater care reading their email messages in future; a paper containing detailed information about Motorola’s work in the West Bank was sent to them by the Palestinian organisation Stop the Wall in May.
Geoghegan-Quinn will be kept busy in the coming months finalising plans for the next EU science programme, which is likely to have a budget of around €80 billion between 2014 and 2020. While the negotiations on the programme’s priorities remain ongoing, Israel’s participation in it has been guaranteed. This means that Geoghegan-Quinn will continue approving the allocation of grants to companies profiting from war and human rights abuses.
Why doesn’t her support for Israel attract more attention than the contents of her bank account?
●First published by Politico, 7 November 2011.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
"Sacred" 9/11 and the shock doctrine in Palestine
Today marks the tenth anniversary of the 11 September attacks in New York and Washington. And predictably, there has already been an excess of analysis in the mainstream media about the significance of the monstrous crimes committed a decade ago. Equally predictably, most of the analysis is repetitive and superficial.
Nonetheless, when I flicked through some newspapers, I came across a comment that came close to echoing my own thoughts. It was from a writer called Amy Waldman, whose debut novel The Submission was published recently. Waldman argues that the date of 11 September 2001 is now considered sacred in the United States. Indeed, it has been imbued with so much sacredness that there is “no limit to the profanity justified to preserve it.”
In an insult to the innocent people killed 10 years ago, the US establishment has used their deaths as an excuse to launch all-out-attacks against the defenceless populations of Afghanistan and Iraq and to bomb Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Israel, meanwhile, was quick to jump on George Bush’s bandwagon and to claim that its ceaseless oppression of the Palestinian people made it an indispensable ally in the so-called war on terror.
Israel has chalked up a long list of profanities over the past decade. I will now zoom in on one of them: a 2002 offensive named Operation Defensive Shield.
That operation began at the end of March 2002 with the bombing of the compound where Yasser Arafat was based in Ramallah. Altogether it lasted four months, involved the Israeli military reinvading parts of the West Bank they were supposed to have vacated under the Oslo accords and killing almost 500 Palestinians, over 70 of whom were children. Perhaps its most infamous episode was the sustained shelling of Jenin refugee camp, where more than 4,000 people were left homeless because of the systematic demolition of buildings. Medical relief teams were blocked from entering the camp for 10 days during a two-week period, when 54 Palestinians in the camp were killed. Amnesty International and other human rights groups who investigated the events stated plainly that Israel had perpetrated war crimes.
Shock doctrine in Palestine
At a time when people in the West Bank were still traumatized by Israel’s latest acts of brutality, Palestine fell victim to what the Naomi Klein has subsequently called the shock doctrine. In June 2002, Salam Fayyad took over as finance minister of the Palestinian Authority after Yasser Arafat was strongarmed into appointing him by the United States and the European Union.
According to the official narrative, Fayyad was appointed to root out corruption in the PA. Undoubtedly, such corruption was a major problem, yet I do not believe that tackling it was a high priority for the West. Instead, there is ample evidence to indicate that Fayyad was imposed on the PA because he was regarded as somebody that would do more or less exactly what the US and Europe told him to do.
As he has become the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister since then, it is important to ask the question: who exactly is Salam Fayyad?
For almost 15 years before he joined the PA, Fayyad worked for the International Monetary Fund, which is largely controlled by the US Treasury. He was clearly inculcated with the neoliberal dogma laid down by that institution, judging by the economic blueprints that he has signed. These have placed the interests of a corporate elite ahead of those of ordinary Palestinians. He has recommended, for example, that more than one-fifth of all public sector jobs should be cut by the PA.
Fayyad has had his ego inflated enormously over the past few years. He has received lavish praise from that vile war criminal Tony Blair and from Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief. And his old pals in the IMF and the World Bank have fed his delusions of grandeur by stating that the PA is sufficiently prepared to assume the responsibilities of statehood. According to Fayyad, these assurances amount to the “birth certificate” of a Palestinian state.
Neoliberal birth cert
What kind of a “birth certificate”, then, is being drawn up for the state which Fayyad wants to have recognised at the UN later this month? This certificate will say, implicitly if not explicitly, that Palestine must pursue economic policies that have been shown time and time again to widen the gap between the rich and the poor. Institutions like the IMF are determined to keep the Palestinian economy on a tight leash, just as they have with many other economies around the world.
The Netherlands is one of several EU governments that has signalled it will oppose the vote on Palestinian statehood at the UN. This proves once again that Uri Rosenthal and Mark Rutte, the Dutch foreign minister and premier, will do almost anything that Israel requests them to do. But that doesn’t mean the PA’s statehood initiative should be supported, simply because some of the most reactionary political leaders in Europe are against it.
The truth is that even those European governments, like that of Spain, who have indicated they will back the statehood initiative cannot be considered real friends of the Palestinian people. And I emphasize that I mean the Palestinian people as a whole, not the quislings in the Palestinian Authority. For all 27 states in the EU and all of the major EU institutions have increased their cooperation with Israel so considerably in recent years that all of them must be considered complicit in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.
Europe sides with the aggressor
I will cite one example of EU-Israel cooperation, with which I have become slightly obsessed. This cooperation is in the field of scientific research. Israel is the most active non-European participant in the EU’s multi-annual research programme. That programme has been allocated €53 billion between 2007 and 2013, with Israel taking part in some 800 coordinated activities under it.
A few days ago, I checked Cordis, the EU’s online information service on scientific research, to see if there are many cases where Dutch universities or private firms are linked up with Israel in projects funded by the European taxpayer. The result of my search indicated that the number of such projects involving both the Netherlands and Israel could be as high as 200.
To give you a flavour of these projects, there is one called Maaximus, which is designed to make aeroplanes that are lighter and can be more quickly assembled than the ones you will find landing today at Schiphol. This 70 million euro project brings together several Dutch partners, including the University of Eindhoven and the National Aerospace Laboratory here in Amsterdam, with Israel Aerospace Industries. Israel Aerospace Industries is one of the main suppliers of the pilotless drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that were used to bomb civilians during Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2008 and 2009.
Towards the end of this year, the European Commission is scheduled to publish a formal blueprint for the future of EU scientific research policy. From all of the discussions I and others have had with EU officials about the surrounding themes, it appears that the Commission is determined to keep on subsidising Israeli weapons manufacturers and by extension providing support to Israeli war crimes.
The EU’s decision to embrace the Israeli arms industry more tightly than before is partly a result of lobbying by international weapons manufacturers. They have convinced policy-makers that it is necessary to allocate them more resources to ensure that Europe doesn’t have to deal with its own 11 September.
Well, I remain unconvinced that subsidising an industry that relies on war to generate profits makes us or future generations safer. And even if it did, I do not want even one cent of my tax euros to be given to Israeli arms companies. This support for companies who profit from oppressing Palestinians is the most grotesque aspect of the EU’s relationship with Israel. And that is why it must be stopped.
·This talk was delivered at an event hosted by the Netherlands Palestine Committee in Amsterdam this weekend. First published by The Electronic Intifada (www.electronicintifada), 11 September 2011.
Nonetheless, when I flicked through some newspapers, I came across a comment that came close to echoing my own thoughts. It was from a writer called Amy Waldman, whose debut novel The Submission was published recently. Waldman argues that the date of 11 September 2001 is now considered sacred in the United States. Indeed, it has been imbued with so much sacredness that there is “no limit to the profanity justified to preserve it.”
In an insult to the innocent people killed 10 years ago, the US establishment has used their deaths as an excuse to launch all-out-attacks against the defenceless populations of Afghanistan and Iraq and to bomb Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Israel, meanwhile, was quick to jump on George Bush’s bandwagon and to claim that its ceaseless oppression of the Palestinian people made it an indispensable ally in the so-called war on terror.
Israel has chalked up a long list of profanities over the past decade. I will now zoom in on one of them: a 2002 offensive named Operation Defensive Shield.
That operation began at the end of March 2002 with the bombing of the compound where Yasser Arafat was based in Ramallah. Altogether it lasted four months, involved the Israeli military reinvading parts of the West Bank they were supposed to have vacated under the Oslo accords and killing almost 500 Palestinians, over 70 of whom were children. Perhaps its most infamous episode was the sustained shelling of Jenin refugee camp, where more than 4,000 people were left homeless because of the systematic demolition of buildings. Medical relief teams were blocked from entering the camp for 10 days during a two-week period, when 54 Palestinians in the camp were killed. Amnesty International and other human rights groups who investigated the events stated plainly that Israel had perpetrated war crimes.
Shock doctrine in Palestine
At a time when people in the West Bank were still traumatized by Israel’s latest acts of brutality, Palestine fell victim to what the Naomi Klein has subsequently called the shock doctrine. In June 2002, Salam Fayyad took over as finance minister of the Palestinian Authority after Yasser Arafat was strongarmed into appointing him by the United States and the European Union.
According to the official narrative, Fayyad was appointed to root out corruption in the PA. Undoubtedly, such corruption was a major problem, yet I do not believe that tackling it was a high priority for the West. Instead, there is ample evidence to indicate that Fayyad was imposed on the PA because he was regarded as somebody that would do more or less exactly what the US and Europe told him to do.
As he has become the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister since then, it is important to ask the question: who exactly is Salam Fayyad?
For almost 15 years before he joined the PA, Fayyad worked for the International Monetary Fund, which is largely controlled by the US Treasury. He was clearly inculcated with the neoliberal dogma laid down by that institution, judging by the economic blueprints that he has signed. These have placed the interests of a corporate elite ahead of those of ordinary Palestinians. He has recommended, for example, that more than one-fifth of all public sector jobs should be cut by the PA.
Fayyad has had his ego inflated enormously over the past few years. He has received lavish praise from that vile war criminal Tony Blair and from Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief. And his old pals in the IMF and the World Bank have fed his delusions of grandeur by stating that the PA is sufficiently prepared to assume the responsibilities of statehood. According to Fayyad, these assurances amount to the “birth certificate” of a Palestinian state.
Neoliberal birth cert
What kind of a “birth certificate”, then, is being drawn up for the state which Fayyad wants to have recognised at the UN later this month? This certificate will say, implicitly if not explicitly, that Palestine must pursue economic policies that have been shown time and time again to widen the gap between the rich and the poor. Institutions like the IMF are determined to keep the Palestinian economy on a tight leash, just as they have with many other economies around the world.
The Netherlands is one of several EU governments that has signalled it will oppose the vote on Palestinian statehood at the UN. This proves once again that Uri Rosenthal and Mark Rutte, the Dutch foreign minister and premier, will do almost anything that Israel requests them to do. But that doesn’t mean the PA’s statehood initiative should be supported, simply because some of the most reactionary political leaders in Europe are against it.
The truth is that even those European governments, like that of Spain, who have indicated they will back the statehood initiative cannot be considered real friends of the Palestinian people. And I emphasize that I mean the Palestinian people as a whole, not the quislings in the Palestinian Authority. For all 27 states in the EU and all of the major EU institutions have increased their cooperation with Israel so considerably in recent years that all of them must be considered complicit in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.
Europe sides with the aggressor
I will cite one example of EU-Israel cooperation, with which I have become slightly obsessed. This cooperation is in the field of scientific research. Israel is the most active non-European participant in the EU’s multi-annual research programme. That programme has been allocated €53 billion between 2007 and 2013, with Israel taking part in some 800 coordinated activities under it.
A few days ago, I checked Cordis, the EU’s online information service on scientific research, to see if there are many cases where Dutch universities or private firms are linked up with Israel in projects funded by the European taxpayer. The result of my search indicated that the number of such projects involving both the Netherlands and Israel could be as high as 200.
To give you a flavour of these projects, there is one called Maaximus, which is designed to make aeroplanes that are lighter and can be more quickly assembled than the ones you will find landing today at Schiphol. This 70 million euro project brings together several Dutch partners, including the University of Eindhoven and the National Aerospace Laboratory here in Amsterdam, with Israel Aerospace Industries. Israel Aerospace Industries is one of the main suppliers of the pilotless drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that were used to bomb civilians during Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2008 and 2009.
Towards the end of this year, the European Commission is scheduled to publish a formal blueprint for the future of EU scientific research policy. From all of the discussions I and others have had with EU officials about the surrounding themes, it appears that the Commission is determined to keep on subsidising Israeli weapons manufacturers and by extension providing support to Israeli war crimes.
The EU’s decision to embrace the Israeli arms industry more tightly than before is partly a result of lobbying by international weapons manufacturers. They have convinced policy-makers that it is necessary to allocate them more resources to ensure that Europe doesn’t have to deal with its own 11 September.
Well, I remain unconvinced that subsidising an industry that relies on war to generate profits makes us or future generations safer. And even if it did, I do not want even one cent of my tax euros to be given to Israeli arms companies. This support for companies who profit from oppressing Palestinians is the most grotesque aspect of the EU’s relationship with Israel. And that is why it must be stopped.
·This talk was delivered at an event hosted by the Netherlands Palestine Committee in Amsterdam this weekend. First published by The Electronic Intifada (www.electronicintifada), 11 September 2011.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Israel's future weapons unveiled in Paris
For the past few years, Ehud Barak has generally visited arms fairs in Paris during June to help drum up business for Israel’s weapons-makers. The exception was 2010, when the international outcry over the attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla prompted the defence minister to cancel his trip.
Barak’s annual routine has now been restored. He was in France once again this week to cut the opening ribbon for the Israeli pavilion at this year’s Paris Air Show. His trip follows the announcement that Israel’s weapons exports were worth $7.2 billion in 2010, a growth of $300 million over the previous year.
Predictably, hacks working for the business and “defence” press were happy to regurgitate the promotional material pumped out by Israeli exhibitors in Paris.
Rafael, a Haifa-based firm, must be especially pleased with the attention devoted to it. In a fawning feature published by Aviation International News, Rafael signalled it is adapting well to these times of austerity. Ilan Biran, the Rafael chairman, said he is running a “boutique” firm, which is hoping to benefit from the increased willingness of countries to share military technology, rather than to rely on domestic suppliers, in order to lower their defence spending.
Like the state of Israel itself, Biran has been able to depict his firm as both tiny and terrifying. The “boutique” Rafael has teamed up with the American behemoth Raytheon to develop David’s Sling. This “air defence missile system” – likely to replace Hawk missiles already in Israel’s arsenal – is making its debut in Paris. Rafael is also being lauded as the innovator of the Iron Dome system. Reportedly capable of intercepting rockets such as those fired by Hamas into southern Israel, Iron Dome has become a useful tool in Israel’s never-ending propaganda war.
Another big draw in Paris is the new medium-weight laser-guided bomb (MLGB) from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). Though only 253 pounds in weight, these sound obese compared to the 22 pound nano-satellites that IAI is working on.
It is surely obscene that the display of weapons that may well be used to kill Palestinians and attack other countries in the future elicits no criticism in the press. How can journalists specialising in “defence” really know so little about the realities of war that they faithfully regurgitate the canard that Israel’s weapons are designed to minimise “collateral damage”? When was avoiding harm to civilians ever on Israel’s agenda?
·First published by Mondoweiss (www.mondoweiss.net), 23 June 2011
Barak’s annual routine has now been restored. He was in France once again this week to cut the opening ribbon for the Israeli pavilion at this year’s Paris Air Show. His trip follows the announcement that Israel’s weapons exports were worth $7.2 billion in 2010, a growth of $300 million over the previous year.
Predictably, hacks working for the business and “defence” press were happy to regurgitate the promotional material pumped out by Israeli exhibitors in Paris.
Rafael, a Haifa-based firm, must be especially pleased with the attention devoted to it. In a fawning feature published by Aviation International News, Rafael signalled it is adapting well to these times of austerity. Ilan Biran, the Rafael chairman, said he is running a “boutique” firm, which is hoping to benefit from the increased willingness of countries to share military technology, rather than to rely on domestic suppliers, in order to lower their defence spending.
Like the state of Israel itself, Biran has been able to depict his firm as both tiny and terrifying. The “boutique” Rafael has teamed up with the American behemoth Raytheon to develop David’s Sling. This “air defence missile system” – likely to replace Hawk missiles already in Israel’s arsenal – is making its debut in Paris. Rafael is also being lauded as the innovator of the Iron Dome system. Reportedly capable of intercepting rockets such as those fired by Hamas into southern Israel, Iron Dome has become a useful tool in Israel’s never-ending propaganda war.
Another big draw in Paris is the new medium-weight laser-guided bomb (MLGB) from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). Though only 253 pounds in weight, these sound obese compared to the 22 pound nano-satellites that IAI is working on.
It is surely obscene that the display of weapons that may well be used to kill Palestinians and attack other countries in the future elicits no criticism in the press. How can journalists specialising in “defence” really know so little about the realities of war that they faithfully regurgitate the canard that Israel’s weapons are designed to minimise “collateral damage”? When was avoiding harm to civilians ever on Israel’s agenda?
·First published by Mondoweiss (www.mondoweiss.net), 23 June 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Silence over EU science grants to Israel's war machine
Top European Union officials seem to be in denial about how they are subsidising Israel’s war industry in the name of innovation.
Although it probably won’t send pulses racing in many newsrooms, a vitally important debate is taking place at the moment about the future of Europe’s policy on scientific research. The debate directly concerns Israel because it is the most active non-European participant in the Union’s multi-annual programme for research. Manufacturers of the weapons used to blitz Gaza during Operation Cast Lead have proven especially adept at accessing funds from the programme, which has been allocated 53 billion euros ($37 billion) between 2007 and 2013.
The ethical and legal questions behind handing over taxpayers’ money to Israeli arms companies are being avoided by the Brussels elite. On Friday (10 June), Europe’s science commissioner Máire Geoghegan Quinn will host a conference to discuss what the priorities of the successor programme – beginning in 2014 – should be. If the agenda for the event is anything to go by, the discussion will be dominated by big picture themes like “strengthening competitiveness” and “tackling societal challenges”. Israel is barely mentioned in preparatory documents – or at least in those that have been made public.
The EU’s cowardice towards Israel is in stark contrast to the stance taken by Norway. In 2009, the Oslo government decided that a state-owned pension scheme should withdraw its investment in Elbit because that Israeli company had supplied an electronic surveillance system to the annexation wall in the West Bank. Yet despite how the wall was declared unlawful by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2004, Elbit has been deemed eligible to take part in at least four EU-funded science projects for the 2007-13 period.
Both Elbit and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) made the pilotless drones or unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) used to bomb Gaza’s civilians in 2008 and 2009. IAI has similarly contributed components to surveillance equipment fitted into the West Bank wall. And IAI is doing nicely, too, out of the EU, taking part in no fewer than 15 of its research projects.
I have quizzed Geoghegan Quinn and her aides about Israel on several occasions. The pat response I have always got is that all of the schemes being financed are of a civilian nature, so there’s nothing to worry about. That is hogwash. There are no safeguards in place to stop the Israeli companies from applying the fruits of this research to developing more sophisticated warplanes than they have in their present arsenal. And you don’t need to be a bearded boffin to see how the results of these projects could be adapted for military purposes. A 70 million euro project named Maaximus – involving IAI and bankrolled by Europe - aims to create lighter and more affordable aircraft. Could it be helping develop the slimmed-down warplanes of the future?
It is a measure of how reliant academics have become on corporate and even military funding that they can defend this grotesque situation. Konstantin Novoselov, 2010 winner of Nobel Prize for Physics, was in Brussels during May to give his input to the debate on Europe’s science policy. The Russian-British scientist told me he was “sick” of people complaining about Israel and argued that the EU gains more from Israel’s participation in its research activities than Israel does itself. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that his views echo those of many Brussels officials, who claim that because Israel invests heavily in technology, the EU needs to court Israel if the Union’s domestic technology sector is to ever flourish.
Fortunately, there are other academics more willing to speak out. The British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) has filed a complaint with the European Commission recently. “The EU continues to fund Israeli research in full knowledge of its exploitation by the state of Israel in the oppression of the Palestinian people,” BRICUP wrote. In total, the Israelis expect they will have pocketed more than 500 million euros from the current research programme once it concludes at the end of 2013.
The aforementioned ICJ verdict stipulated that every country is under an obligation not to “render aid or assistance” that would help sustain the illegal situation created by the West Bank wall. Surely, the granting of EU subsidies to companies that helped build that wall constitutes such “aid or assistance”. Why are Europe’s representatives so nonchalant about their support for crimes against humanity?
·First published by Mondoweiss (www.mondoweiss.net), 8 June 2011
Although it probably won’t send pulses racing in many newsrooms, a vitally important debate is taking place at the moment about the future of Europe’s policy on scientific research. The debate directly concerns Israel because it is the most active non-European participant in the Union’s multi-annual programme for research. Manufacturers of the weapons used to blitz Gaza during Operation Cast Lead have proven especially adept at accessing funds from the programme, which has been allocated 53 billion euros ($37 billion) between 2007 and 2013.
The ethical and legal questions behind handing over taxpayers’ money to Israeli arms companies are being avoided by the Brussels elite. On Friday (10 June), Europe’s science commissioner Máire Geoghegan Quinn will host a conference to discuss what the priorities of the successor programme – beginning in 2014 – should be. If the agenda for the event is anything to go by, the discussion will be dominated by big picture themes like “strengthening competitiveness” and “tackling societal challenges”. Israel is barely mentioned in preparatory documents – or at least in those that have been made public.
The EU’s cowardice towards Israel is in stark contrast to the stance taken by Norway. In 2009, the Oslo government decided that a state-owned pension scheme should withdraw its investment in Elbit because that Israeli company had supplied an electronic surveillance system to the annexation wall in the West Bank. Yet despite how the wall was declared unlawful by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2004, Elbit has been deemed eligible to take part in at least four EU-funded science projects for the 2007-13 period.
Both Elbit and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) made the pilotless drones or unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) used to bomb Gaza’s civilians in 2008 and 2009. IAI has similarly contributed components to surveillance equipment fitted into the West Bank wall. And IAI is doing nicely, too, out of the EU, taking part in no fewer than 15 of its research projects.
I have quizzed Geoghegan Quinn and her aides about Israel on several occasions. The pat response I have always got is that all of the schemes being financed are of a civilian nature, so there’s nothing to worry about. That is hogwash. There are no safeguards in place to stop the Israeli companies from applying the fruits of this research to developing more sophisticated warplanes than they have in their present arsenal. And you don’t need to be a bearded boffin to see how the results of these projects could be adapted for military purposes. A 70 million euro project named Maaximus – involving IAI and bankrolled by Europe - aims to create lighter and more affordable aircraft. Could it be helping develop the slimmed-down warplanes of the future?
It is a measure of how reliant academics have become on corporate and even military funding that they can defend this grotesque situation. Konstantin Novoselov, 2010 winner of Nobel Prize for Physics, was in Brussels during May to give his input to the debate on Europe’s science policy. The Russian-British scientist told me he was “sick” of people complaining about Israel and argued that the EU gains more from Israel’s participation in its research activities than Israel does itself. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that his views echo those of many Brussels officials, who claim that because Israel invests heavily in technology, the EU needs to court Israel if the Union’s domestic technology sector is to ever flourish.
Fortunately, there are other academics more willing to speak out. The British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) has filed a complaint with the European Commission recently. “The EU continues to fund Israeli research in full knowledge of its exploitation by the state of Israel in the oppression of the Palestinian people,” BRICUP wrote. In total, the Israelis expect they will have pocketed more than 500 million euros from the current research programme once it concludes at the end of 2013.
The aforementioned ICJ verdict stipulated that every country is under an obligation not to “render aid or assistance” that would help sustain the illegal situation created by the West Bank wall. Surely, the granting of EU subsidies to companies that helped build that wall constitutes such “aid or assistance”. Why are Europe’s representatives so nonchalant about their support for crimes against humanity?
·First published by Mondoweiss (www.mondoweiss.net), 8 June 2011
Monday, June 28, 2010
Ireland's EU envoy aids Israeli war machine
Ireland’s EU commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn is set to approve two technology grants for an Israeli company that made some of the most lethal weapons used in last year’s war against Gaza.
Brussels officials are assessing a new series of Israeli applications for funding under the EU’s multi-annual research programme, which Geoghegan-Quinn administers. The probable beneficiaries include Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), manufacturer of the Heron, a warplane that terrorised Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants in late 2008 and 2009.
IAI has been deemed eligible for two new EU grants following evaluations carried out in recent months but is awaiting a final decision from Geoghegan-Quinn and her advisers. The grants – part of a series earmarked for Israel worth a total of €17 million – are supposed to help develop a new internet-type system for the telecommunications and financial services industries.
Geoghegan-Quinn’s spokesman Mark English said that while the projects concerned are civilian, there is no guarantee that the fruits of EU-financed research will not eventually be used by the Israeli military. “We don’t fund military projects,” he added. “However, probably the majority of our projects have direct or indirect military applications.”
Although Israel does not formally belong to the EU, it is an active participant in the Union’s “framework programme” for scientific research, which has been allocated €53 billion between 2007 and 2013. The programme is the largest source of funding that Israel receives from the EU, with Tel Aviv expecting that the total value of the grants it draws over the duration of the programme to exceed €500 million.
Mahmoud Abu Rahma, a campaigner with the Gaza-based human rights group Al Mezan, said it would be “outrageous” for Geoghegan-Quinn to support Israeli arms firms. “The European Union is very well informed about the way these weapons have been used,” he said. “There have been many panels in the EU and its member states looking into cases where weapons have been used in perpetrating war crimes. The least we can expect is that the EU will take a stand on this.”
IAI’s Heron was one of the two pilotless drones – also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – “battle-tested” by Israel in Gaza last year. An investigation by Human Rights Watch found that while these aircraft are equipped with sophisticated cameras and sensors allowing an army to verify whether a target is a combatant or a civilian, they were frequently used against innocent Gazans. Eighty-seven civilians were killed by drones during the three-week offensive.
Despite the widespread revulsion at that war among the European public, IAI’s wares were given much prominence at Eurosatory, an arms exhibition held in Paris earlier this month. The company availed of the occasion to promote a new unmanned weapons system called the Electronic Tethered Observation Platform (ETOP). It has been hailed as the first in a line of “hovering air vehicles” that IAI has designed for future wars.
Israel is predicting that 2010 will be a bumper year for its arms companies, with their sales reaching $8 billion, according to a recent statement from the country’s defence ministry. With a population of only around 7 million, Israel is already the fourth largest arms dealer on the planet.
Among the other Israeli firms likely to have their funding bids rubber-stamped by Geoghegan-Quinn are Afcon, a supplier of metal detectors to military checkpoints in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the Erez crossing between southern Israel and Gaza. Afcon was also awarded a contract in 2008 for installing a security system in a light rail project designed to connect illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem with the city centre.
Geoghegan-Quinn’s anticipated support for Israeli firms specialising in surveillance follows a raft of EU grants issued to such companies over the past decade, when Israel positioned itself as indispensable to George Bush’s “war on terror”. Athena GS3, a company run by a former head of the secret service Mossad, has been one of many recipients. It forms part of the Mer Group, a supplier of equipment to settlements and checkpoints in East Jerusalem and the wider West Bank.
Merav Amir from the Coalition of Women for Peace, a Tel Aviv group opposed to the occupation of Palestine, said that it would be “highly problematic” for the EU to draw a distinction between military and non-military research in the case of Israel. “The military here is used as part of this whole mechanism of control that is much wider than anything that is done at gunpoint,” she said. “There are also a wide range of civilian means used for depriving Palestinians of their basic human rights. Any aspect of the occupation that you look at is done through a wide range of technologies, whether they be biometric means, security cameras, fences, sensors and so on. It is not simply things that are aimed to kill.”
•First published by The Sunday Tribune, 27 June 2010 (www.tribune.ie)
Brussels officials are assessing a new series of Israeli applications for funding under the EU’s multi-annual research programme, which Geoghegan-Quinn administers. The probable beneficiaries include Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), manufacturer of the Heron, a warplane that terrorised Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants in late 2008 and 2009.
IAI has been deemed eligible for two new EU grants following evaluations carried out in recent months but is awaiting a final decision from Geoghegan-Quinn and her advisers. The grants – part of a series earmarked for Israel worth a total of €17 million – are supposed to help develop a new internet-type system for the telecommunications and financial services industries.
Geoghegan-Quinn’s spokesman Mark English said that while the projects concerned are civilian, there is no guarantee that the fruits of EU-financed research will not eventually be used by the Israeli military. “We don’t fund military projects,” he added. “However, probably the majority of our projects have direct or indirect military applications.”
Although Israel does not formally belong to the EU, it is an active participant in the Union’s “framework programme” for scientific research, which has been allocated €53 billion between 2007 and 2013. The programme is the largest source of funding that Israel receives from the EU, with Tel Aviv expecting that the total value of the grants it draws over the duration of the programme to exceed €500 million.
Mahmoud Abu Rahma, a campaigner with the Gaza-based human rights group Al Mezan, said it would be “outrageous” for Geoghegan-Quinn to support Israeli arms firms. “The European Union is very well informed about the way these weapons have been used,” he said. “There have been many panels in the EU and its member states looking into cases where weapons have been used in perpetrating war crimes. The least we can expect is that the EU will take a stand on this.”
IAI’s Heron was one of the two pilotless drones – also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – “battle-tested” by Israel in Gaza last year. An investigation by Human Rights Watch found that while these aircraft are equipped with sophisticated cameras and sensors allowing an army to verify whether a target is a combatant or a civilian, they were frequently used against innocent Gazans. Eighty-seven civilians were killed by drones during the three-week offensive.
Despite the widespread revulsion at that war among the European public, IAI’s wares were given much prominence at Eurosatory, an arms exhibition held in Paris earlier this month. The company availed of the occasion to promote a new unmanned weapons system called the Electronic Tethered Observation Platform (ETOP). It has been hailed as the first in a line of “hovering air vehicles” that IAI has designed for future wars.
Israel is predicting that 2010 will be a bumper year for its arms companies, with their sales reaching $8 billion, according to a recent statement from the country’s defence ministry. With a population of only around 7 million, Israel is already the fourth largest arms dealer on the planet.
Among the other Israeli firms likely to have their funding bids rubber-stamped by Geoghegan-Quinn are Afcon, a supplier of metal detectors to military checkpoints in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the Erez crossing between southern Israel and Gaza. Afcon was also awarded a contract in 2008 for installing a security system in a light rail project designed to connect illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem with the city centre.
Geoghegan-Quinn’s anticipated support for Israeli firms specialising in surveillance follows a raft of EU grants issued to such companies over the past decade, when Israel positioned itself as indispensable to George Bush’s “war on terror”. Athena GS3, a company run by a former head of the secret service Mossad, has been one of many recipients. It forms part of the Mer Group, a supplier of equipment to settlements and checkpoints in East Jerusalem and the wider West Bank.
Merav Amir from the Coalition of Women for Peace, a Tel Aviv group opposed to the occupation of Palestine, said that it would be “highly problematic” for the EU to draw a distinction between military and non-military research in the case of Israel. “The military here is used as part of this whole mechanism of control that is much wider than anything that is done at gunpoint,” she said. “There are also a wide range of civilian means used for depriving Palestinians of their basic human rights. Any aspect of the occupation that you look at is done through a wide range of technologies, whether they be biometric means, security cameras, fences, sensors and so on. It is not simply things that are aimed to kill.”
•First published by The Sunday Tribune, 27 June 2010 (www.tribune.ie)
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