[News] Sixty percent of global drone exports come from Israel

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Sixty percent of global drone exports come from Israel — new data

Submitted by Rania Khalek on Tue, 03/24/2015 - 10:22
*http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/sixty-percent-global-drone-exports-come-israel-new-data*

Drones developed by the Israeli firm Elbit have been tested in attacks 
on Gaza’s children. (Flickr 
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/25802865@N08/6936691265/in/photolist-ejHJ9Z-ejPtbs-byYmDg-akRGRv-akUwm7-7uj6Zz-7zWc93-2ATB5k>)

Israel has supplied 60.7 percent 
<http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2015/mar/16/numbers-behind-worldwide-trade-in-drones-uk-israel> 
of the world’s drones since 1985, according to new data from the 
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

As a result, Israel is the single greatest source of drone proliferation 
in the world.

In second place is the United States, which accounts for 23.9 percent of 
global drone exports, followed by Canada at 6.4 percent, France at 1.6 
percent, Austria at 1.4 percent, Italy at 1.1 percent, Germany at 1 
percent and China at 0.9 percent.

Conversely, the United Kingdom is the world’s number one importer of 
drones. Between 2010 and 2014, the UK bought 55 drones from Israel and 
six armed drones from the US, which accounted for one third of global 
drone deliveries in that time period.

The vast majority of the drone market is comprised of surveillance drones,

The US, UK and Israel are the only countries in the world 
<http://truth-out.org/news/item/20238-drone-strike-victims-find-support-from-activists-silence-from-unapologetic-us-leaders> 
known to have used armed drones, deployed exclusively against nonwhite 
predominantly Muslim populations in nations and territories that have 
been pillaged and destroyed by Western conquest.

The besieged Gaza Strip has served as the leading testing ground for 
both armed and surveillance drones.


    Tested on Palestinians

Over the last decade, Israel’s use of robotic warfare against 
Palestinians has escalated dramatically, with each new military assault 
on Gaza relying more heavily on drones than the last.

Last summer, Israel’s 51-day bombing campaign against Gaza killed more 
than 2,200 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, including more 
than 500 children.

Based on data collected by the Al Mezan Center for Human rights 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/al-mezan-center-human-rights>, a 
Corporate Watch <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/corporate-watch> 
investigation found that at least 37 percent 
<http://www.corporatewatch.org/news/2015/feb/20/gaza-life-beneath-drones> of 
those killed, or 840 people, died in drone strikes alone.

Corporate Watch chart of drone deaths in Gaza by year.

Lost in the numbers is the psychological terror 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/11/gaza-life-death-under-israel-drones-20131125124214350423.html> 
inflicted on the people of the Gaza ghetto, especially children, by the 
constant presence of drones buzzing overhead with the capacity to rain 
death on those below at any moment.

This has been wildly lucrative for Israeli arms companies, which exploit 
Israel’s frequent military assaults as opportunities to expedite the 
testing <http://mondoweiss.net/2014/12/suicide-israeli-manufacturers> of 
their products on human subjects.

Easy access to a captive Palestinian population to experiment 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israel-firing-experimental-weapons-gazas-civilians-say-doctors> 
on allows Israeli arms producers to market their products as “combat 
proven,” a coveted seal of approval that gives Israel a competitive edge 
in the international arms trade. Israel’s repression technology is then 
exported 
<http://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israels-war-industry-profits-violent-us-immigration-reform/13283> 
to regimes that are similarly invested in subjugating the poor and 
marginalized.

This dystopian arrangement has paved the way for Israel, a country the 
size of New Jersey, to rank among the globe’s top arms exporters 
<http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/08/29/344030354/with-home-grown-technology-israel-becomes-leading-arms-exporter?_ga=1.179130916.1832701724.1410929448>.

A case in point is Elbit Systems 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/elbit-systems>, Israel’s largest 
military technology firm, which produces 85 percent 
<http://www.corporatewatch.org/company-profiles/elbit> of the drones 
that make up the Israeli army’s vast arsenal.

The Hermes 900, a drone manufactured by Elbit, was deployed 
operationally for the first time 
<http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140812/DEFREG04/308120026/Israeli-Forces-Praise-Elbit-UAVs-Gaza-Op> against 
Palestinians in Gaza last summer, even though it was still undergoing 
testing <http://www.iaf.org.il/4410-42217-en/IAF.aspx>. Nicknamed the 
/Kochav/ — which is Hebrew for “star” — the Hermes 900’s blood-soaked 
performance garnered widespread praise at Israel’s annual drone 
conference 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-drone-conference-features-weapons-used-kill-gazas-children>, 
held less than a month after the Gaza slaughter.

The Hermes 900 is a more advanced version of the Hermes 450, an aerial 
attack and surveillance drone that was used by the Israeli army to 
deliberately target civilians in Gaza during Israel’s previous onslaught 
in late 2008 and early 2009, according to Human Rights Watch 
<http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/iopt0609webwcover_0.pdf>.

The Hermes drone was also used to kill civilians in Israel’s attack on 
Lebanon in 2006 <http://www.stopthewall.org/downloads/pdf/Elbit-fc.pdf>, 
including Red Cross workers, ambulance drivers and dozens of people 
fleeing their homes in a desperate search for safety from Israeli 
bombardment.

Marketed in the company brochure 
<http://62.0.44.103/Elbitmain/files/Hermes_450_%282012%29.pdf> as 
“combat-proven” and “Fighting terror for over a decade,” the Hermes 450 
boasts “a class-leading safety and reliability record.”

Apparently impressed by the aircraft’s capacity for bloodshed, the 
Brazilian government purchased a fleet of Hermes drones to help crush 
<http://www.thenation.com/blog/180465/exporting-gaza-arming-brazils-world-cup-security#> 
the massive protests that erupted across Brazil against the 2014 World Cup.

Thales UK — a subsidiary of the French company, Thales 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/thales>, which is ranked as the 
eleventh largest arms producer 
<http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/production/recent-trends-in-arms-industry> 
in the world — signed a $1.6 billion 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/new-uk-drones-field-tested-captive-palestinians> 
joint venture with Elbit Systems in 2011 to develop a new drone 
fleet called Watchkeeper for the British military.

The Watchkeeper is being modeled on the Hermes 450, which has been 
deployed by the British army in Afghanistan 
<https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hermes-450-reaches-70000-hours-in-afghanistan>.

Elbit might be Israel’s largest drone producer, but it’s hardly the only 
Israeli company selling equipment tested on Palestinians to regimes 
around the world.

According to an investigation by Drones UK, Israel has exported drone 
technology to at least fifty different countries 
<https://dronewarsuk.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/israel-and-the-drone-wars.pdf>, 
enabling atrocities and fueling war.

With America’s blessing, Israel sold drones and fighter jets to Sri 
Lanka 
<http://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-advises-sri-lanka-slow-motion-genocide/12644>, 
which were used to commit atrocities against Sri Lanka’s ethnic Tamil 
minority.

South Korea recently purchased 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/jimmy-johnson/south-korea-buy-israeli-drones-used-attacks-gaza-and-lebanon> the 
Heron drone, which is produced by Israel Aerospace Industries 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/israel-aerospace-industries> and has 
been deployed for surveillance and target acquisition in Israeli attacks 
on Lebanon and Gaza.

In addition to helping crush World Cup protests, Israeli drones have 
been used by Brazilian police to invade the nation’s /favelas/ 
<http://www.haaretz.com/business/1.598359>.

In certain instances, Israel has sold drones to both sides in a given 
conflict. Both Russia and Georgia 
<http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/russia/121022/russia-georgia-drones-little-war> — 
between whom a conflict took place in 2008 — were armed with Israeli 
drones. Turkey 
<http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/06/21/turkey.israeli.surveillance/> and the 
Kurdistan Workers Party 
<http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/PKK-using-Israeli-drones-to-attack-Turkish-troops> (PKK) have 
reportedly both  used Israeli drones.

Meanwhile, Israel’s drone exports to India have provoked a drone “arms 
race” with neighboring Pakistan, according to the organization Drones UK.


    Israel invented drones

Israel was instrumental 
<http://www.thejewishweek.com/blogs/political-insider/israels-pioneering-drones-led-way-us> 
in pioneering the modern drone due largely to the ideology at its core.

Israel’s creation as a majority Jewish state was precipitated by the 
pre-meditated ethnic cleansing of 750,000 indigenous Palestinians by 
Zionist militias in 1948 — which Palestinians refer to as the Nakba 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/nakba>, or catastrophe. Israel has 
spent every day since then consolidating and expanding its Jewish 
majority in historic Palestine, which has required tremendous levels of 
violence, including the ongoing containment and exclusion of the native 
Palestinian inhabitants still under its control.

The Israeli economy has been built around advancing this goal, giving 
rise to a booming “homeland security” industry that caters to the 
designs of Zionism and then repackages occupation-style repression for 
export and profit.

Drone technology has been crucial to this endeavor.

After suffering heavy losses in its 1973 war with Egypt, the Israeli 
regime, for the first time in its existence, was met with backlash 
<https://books.google.com/books?id=g1TkFQgzp5cC&lpg=PA177&dq=the%20domestic%20fallout%20of%20the%20yom%20kippur%20war&pg=PA177#v=onepage&q=the%20domestic%20fallout%20of%20the%20yom%20kippur%20war&f=false> 
from an Israeli Jewish public unaccustomed to high soldier casualties.

It was in the aftermath of the 1973 war that the Israeli government 
began investing 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/jimmy-johnson/israels-deadly-drones-have-origins-sinai-occupation> 
heavily in drone technology, minimizing the risk to its soldiers, 
effectively pacifying future opposition to endless war, expansion and 
conquest.

Israel Aerospace Industries, known as Israel Aircraft Industries at the 
time, and the Israeli company Tadiran were tasked with designing drones 
for real-time intelligence collection in the occupied Sinai 
<http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=901>.

Soon enough, IAI invented the Scout drone, which was deployed in 1982 
<https://dronewarsuk.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/israel-and-the-drone-wars.pdf> 
to coordinate targeting during Israel’s deadly invasion of Lebanon. 
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Israel tested and refined a variety of 
drones on the people of southern Lebanon in an attempt to crush armed 
resistance to its occupation. With each operation came another wave of 
advancements in drone technology.

With the start of the second intifada 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/second-intifada> and Israel’s forced 
withdraw from southern Lebanon in 2000, the occupied West Bank and 
Gaza became Israel’s primary testing grounds for drone warfare.

Israeli drones provided hidden attack helicopters with coordinates to 
fire on 
<http://aviationweek.com/awin/israel-s-long-reach-exploits-unmanned-aircraft> 
during Israel’s ruthless 2002 attack on the Jenin refugee camp in 
the West Bank. As early as 2004 
<http://www.angelfire.com/pop2/israel1/2004/Israel_2004_10-26-0B.html>, 
Israeli drones were raining down missiles on the Gaza Strip in targeted 
assassinations of Palestinians fighters.

Though the US started utilizing and investing in drone technology before 
Israel, Israel was always one step ahead.

It’s no coincidence that Abraham Karem 
<http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/the-man-who-invented-the-predator-3970502/?all>, 
an Israeli citizen, designed the Predator drone, which has been deployed 
by the US military and the CIA to carry out targeted assassinations that 
have left hundreds of innocent people dead 
<http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147>. 
The Iraqi-born Karem received a degree in aeronautical engineering at 
the Haifa-based Israel Institute of Technology — better known as the 
Technion —  and got his start at IAI before immigrating to the US after 
he was blackballed by the Israeli government for starting his own drone 
company.

Today, Gaza is surrounded with Israeli drones by air, land and sea.

In addition to the surveillance drones that hover overhead, the walls of 
the Gaza cage will soon be reinforced by Border Patroller 
<http://http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/IDF-expects-UGVs-robots-to-play-ever-greater-roles-in-combat-391365>, 
an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), or land drone, armed with 
remote-controlled weapons. Designed by the Israeli company G-NIUS, a 
joint venture between Elbit Systems and IAI, the Border Patroller, like 
the walls it fortifies, will prevent the Palestinian refugees of Gaza 
from escaping their cage.

The Protector 
<http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4381876,00.html>, produced by 
Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, is an unmanned sea vehicle 
(USV), or boat drone, that roams Gaza’s coast to obstruct Palestinian 
fishermen from making a living.

If the proliferation of Israel’s aerial drones is any indication, it 
won’t be long before land and sea drones spread to all corners of the 
globe.

As long as Israel’s economy is shaped by the subjugation and elimination 
of Palestinians, it will continue to function as a factory for 
cutting-edge repression technology that sustains racism and inequality 
around the globe.

<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/gaza-fishing-industry>

-- 
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