Israel reported as the 4th largest arms dealer in the world
The Associated Press reports that in 2007 Israel sold $4.3 billion in arms exports, primarily to the United States and India. The report states that Israel now leads Great Britain, following after the U.S., Russia and France.
It seems that Ben Gurion’s vision that the Jewish state be a nation like any other nation grows more true each day. The current and future wars of the world are now fought with weapons made by Jewish hands. Whether one is a peacenik, a hawk, a “conscientious objector,” a pacifist or a realist, one thing is clear–Israel is manufacturing and selling lots of weapons, and that has an effect on the local and global economy.
According to the Associated Press:
Ben-Hannan said the trade gives a valuable boost to Israel’s economy.
Every billion dollars in new contracts creates another 20,000 jobs, he said.
Remember the last couple years of the war when we would hear lots of reporting about the lack of sufficient armor for soldiers and their vehicles? Well, those are some of the jobs mister Ben-Hannan is referring to. According to Globes-Online, the #1 exporter in the Israeli defense industry is Plasan Sasa Ltd., which manufactures armor kits for military vehicles, and last year landed a major contract supplying such armor for the US Marines. Interestingly, the second largest seller reported by the Globes is Elbit Systems Ltd., which has a wholly owned subsidiary, Elbit Systems of America, LLC. Since most of the business that Elbit does with America seems to be through this subsidiary, I’m not sure if this directly effects the Israeli economy.
Yossi Melman for Ha’aretz writes an interesting article on how this growing industry is having some questionable effects on Israeli businessmen, reporting that some defense industry products originating in Israel have made their way to nations like Iran.
This type of news is very timely, especially for a certain potential candidate to be Israel’s next premier–who, following his last go at prime minister, became a senior consultant for Electronic Data Systems, a subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard that is very involved in defense industry research and development; and he also later was a partner with SCP Private Equity Partners, an American firm heavily invested in the defense industry.
Does the realization that the Jewish State is a world-class arms dealer change how the global community should react to recent accusations leveled by former president Jimmy Carter?
Carter is quoted as saying:
“The U.S. has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union has about the same, Great Britain and France have several hundred, and Israel has 150 or more,”
Ignore the former president’s apparent senility that such a place as the USSR still exists, and we should note that this list of nations is the same as that above the world’s top four arms dealers.
So how do we feel about our company?
Israel - being the world’s fourth largest arms dealer - is nothing like other nations. It is worse. I doubt ben gurion wanted us to become full time arms dealers.
—Amit · June 1st, 2008 at 7:08 am
Yeah, and let’s also give Israel credit for their booming tech sector helping increase our “surveillance”-set-top-cop state.
Yeah, let’s promote 20th century model of weapon exports and just update for the techno-groovy 21st century. World leaders unite! Let’s give credit to the Israeli techno community, right up there w/ Silicon Valley in providing the tools for our surveillance set-top-box-cop state.
Check out this blogpost that focuses on the insanity re: Israel and US’s abject failure re: the power of cultural diplomacy to actually be an “export” that would unambiguously increased Israel’s security and strategic Intl. Rel. self-interest.
oh welll…..
And we thought Lebanon Round-1-21st century-style; just wait for act two.
oh my…
http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2.....ic-lunacy/
(tracks back to NYXs)
—Lewis · June 1st, 2008 at 10:28 am
Economic stupidity (=socialism) has kept Israel back all these decades. If not for that Israel wouldn’t have to sell the weapons they create to finance their defence. I don’t want to see Israeli weapons in Iranian hands either so I generally support a reduction in arms dealing by Israel.
—formermuslim · June 1st, 2008 at 10:35 am
I know it’s all over the place, but the statistics are a bit misleading. The ‘arms exports’ that the article mentions are all equipment and product used for security purposes, not only guns and ammo that I’m sure is the connotation that comes first to mind. The top exporter, Plassan, is only selling armour plating for vehicles, not missiles.
—josh · June 1st, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Josh-
Plasan is just one company among dozens and dozens of Israeli defense firms–and supplying the Marines is supplying the Marines, armor or weapons or food or toilet paper. Plus, it says in the blog “Plasan Sasa Ltd., which manufactures armor kits for military vehicles.”
And like Lewis says, not only are Israeli firms supplying technology and hardware for our Armed Forces (and probably private mercenary forces, too), but they are also supplying our police forces with their surveillance equipment.
I think the question still stands, as Jews, what do we think about the Jewish State being a primary supplier of the worlds’ armies?
—yehuda · June 1st, 2008 at 10:11 pm