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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element" dir="ltr"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/builders-israels-apartheid-walls-profit-us-border-militarization">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/builders-israels-apartheid-walls-profit-us-border-militarization</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Builders of Israel's apartheid walls
profit from US border militarization</h1>
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/nora-barrows-friedman">Nora
Barrows-Friedman</a></span> <span class="field
field-blog">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2019-10-08T15:52:00+00:00">8 October 2019</span></span>
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dir="ltr">
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<figure id="file-85111"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><figcaption><small><span></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>A major Israeli weapons company has been named as one
of the top profiteers of US border militarization.</p>
<p><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/elbit">Elbit
Systems</a> has secured border contracts worth $187
million from the US government, according to research
by journalist Todd Miller.</p>
<p>The largest, <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israels-war-industry-profits-violent-us-immigration-reform/13283">awarded
during the Obama administration</a>, is to build
more than 50 surveillance towers near the US-Mexico
border for the US government’s Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) agency.</p>
<p><a
href="https://theintercept.com/2019/08/25/border-patrol-israel-elbit-surveillance/">Ten
of those towers</a> will be on land belonging to the
Indigenous Tohono O’odham Nation in Arizona.</p>
<p>A 2014 Bloomberg <a
href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-27/israel-s-elbit-wins-u-s-border-surveillance-contract">analysis</a>
predicted that Elbit’s initial profits could multiply
if Congress authorized more funds to militarize the
border.</p>
<p>Miller’s report – “<a
href="https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/more-than-a-wall-report.pdf">More
Than a Wall: Corporate Profiteering and the
Militarization of US Borders</a>” – was recently
published by human rights research group the <a
href="https://www.tni.org/en">Transnational
Institute</a>, in collaboration with <a
href="http://forms.nomoredeaths.org/about-no-more-deaths/">No
More Deaths</a>, a humanitarian organization which
protects migrants along the southern US border.</p>
<p>The report profiles the top 14 companies profiteering
from US border militarization, including Elbit.</p>
<div id="file-84966">
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<blockquote data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">14 corporations have shaped
Trump’s cruel border policy and are profiting
while families suffer. <a
href="https://t.co/MP4ya88Gtt">https://t.co/MP4ya88Gtt</a>
<a
href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DefundHate?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DefundHate</a>
<a href="https://t.co/ZaRsu9bb1O">pic.twitter.com/ZaRsu9bb1O</a></p>
— TNI (@TNInstitute) <a
href="https://twitter.com/TNInstitute/status/1174234376504299520?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September
18, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<div id="file-84971">
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<blockquote data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">A new report from <a
href="https://twitter.com/TNInstitute?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TNInstitute</a>
shows that border militarization long pre-dates
the Trump administration, in which both
Republicans and Democrats have forged
“profitable” partnership between security firms
to form a "powerful border–industrial complex."
<a href="https://t.co/7yfZu51N4z">https://t.co/7yfZu51N4z</a></p>
— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) <a
href="https://twitter.com/telesurenglish/status/1174563773341982720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September
19, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<p>In 2004, Elbit won a US government contract to <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israels-war-industry-profits-violent-us-immigration-reform/13283">supply
Hermes drones</a> for use along the border.</p>
<p>Israel “has ‘field tested’ those drones in attacks on
Gaza which left many Palestinians dead, including
children,” the UK charity War on Want <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/new-uk-drones-field-tested-captive-palestinians">stated</a>
in 2013.</p>
<p>Notably, Elbit “sells its experience of walling in
the West Bank and Gaza,” the new report states.</p>
<p>Since Israel began constructing its <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/israels-wall-west-bank">wall</a>
around Jerusalem and elsewhere inside the occupied
West Bank in 2002, Elbit and its subsidiaries have
cashed in on contracts to install electronic
surveillance technologies “designed to feed into [the
Israeli army’s] command and control centers.”</p>
<p>The West Bank wall is illegal under international law
and must be dismantled, according to a landmark <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/international-court-rules-against-israels-wall/1743">2004
ruling</a> by the International Court of Justice.</p>
<p>In 2013, Elbit installed similar systems in the
occupied Syrian Golan Heights in a contract worth $60
million.</p>
<p>Two years later, Elbit began developing “tunnel
detection technology” for use around the besieged Gaza
Strip, the report states. That technology would become
part of a 130-foot deep underground wall that Israel
began building in 2017.</p>
<p>When vying for the US-Mexico border contract Elbit
advertised itself as having more than 10 years
“securing the world’s most challenging borders” and
that it had a “proven track record.”</p>
<h2>Bonanza</h2>
<p>Along with Elbit, war industry corporations including
Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/g4s">G4S</a>,
IBM and Northrop Grumman have cashed in what the
report describes as a “border-security bonanza.”</p>
<p>US border militarization contracts with such
corporations added up to at least $80.5 billion
between 2006 and 2018.</p>
<p>But this money is “certainly less than the true
figures,” the report estimates, as the agencies
issuing the contracts have consistently failed to be
transparent.</p>
<p>Annual US border militarization budgets have more
than doubled in the last 15 years and have increased
by more than 6,000 percent since 1980, according to
the report.</p>
<p>Some corporations contracted by CBP have committed
significant <a
href="https://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2015-62.html">ethical</a>
<a
href="https://corpwatch.org/article/us-technology-company-hired-after-911-charged-too-much-labor-audit-says">violations</a>.</p>
<p>But repeated scandals involving some of the biggest
border security corporations “have done little to slow
down the revenue stream,” the report says.</p>
<p>G4S, the world’s largest security company and a major
US contractor, has faced legal proceedings over the <a
href="http://investigate.afsc.org/company/g4s">abuse
and death of detainees</a> in the US and UK.</p>
<p>Campaigners have successfully pressured institutions
and governments to <a
href="https://bdsmovement.net/g4s-timeline">drop
contracts</a> with G4S due to human rights abuses.</p>
<p>These abuses include <a
href="https://whoprofits.org/company/g4s-israel-hashmira/">involvement</a>
with Israeli prisons where Palestinians are routinely
tortured.</p>
<h2>Lobbying legislators</h2>
<p>Corporations have lobbied US officials and made
campaign contributions in an effort to expand CBP
contracts.</p>
<p>Elbit, for instance, has funded Republican
congresswomen Martha McSally of Arizona and Kay
Granger of Texas.</p>
<p>McSally has used rhetoric <a
href="https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/opinion/report/052318_mcsally_asylum/mcsally-asylum-seekers-enrich-cartels-vulnerable-ms-13-recruitment/">demonizing
people who are immigrants or who seek asylum</a>.</p>
<p>She is a <a
href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2019/03/13/sen-martha-mcsally-set-uphold-trump-border-emergency/3152460002/">staunch</a>
<a
href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2018/06/12/mcsallys-office-removes-video-supporting-compassionate-fix-daca/692897002/">supporter</a>
of the Trump administration’s harsh border policies.</p>
<p>And Granger is a <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/09/us/politics/congress-border-wall.html">ranking
member</a> of the House Appropriations Committee
which allocates border militarization funding.</p>
<p>The report says it is time to expose how the firms
that profit from cruelty and militarization at the
border influence lawmakers.</p>
<p>“The constant push for more border walls, more
technologies, more incarceration, more criminalization
is in a holding pattern, stuck in a corporate dynamic
with a growth doctrine,” it states.</p>
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