17 aug 2013
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US and Israeli officials are discussing a surge in the US military aid to Israel as the two sides are in negotiations over a new 10-year military aid package.
Under an existing aid agreement between Washington and Tel Aviv signed in 2007, $30 billion of American taxpayers’ money is currently flowing to Israel, reported Defense News. However, Israelis are concerned with increasing US arms sales to countries in the region and are asking Washington for a surge in its advanced military aid. According to Defense News the new package would extend through 2027 and would focus on “a full spectrum of Israeli concerns, including military modernization needs, new threats from regional instability and the erosion of Israel’s so-called qualitative military edge (QME) due to US arms sales in the Mideast.” The US annual military aid to Israel has been elevated from $2.4 billion to $3.1 billion through 2017 under the existing agreement but the scope of the increase in the US Foreign Military Financing (FMF) levels demanded by Israel is not clear yet. An unnamed US official has told Defense News that QME assessments, which have never been explicitly considered in long-term FMF agreements between Washington and Tel Aviv, would be applied to the 2018-27 aid package. At a press conference during his visit to Israel in March, President Barack |
Obama said he had agreed to begin discussions with Israel over extending military aid to Tel Aviv.
“Our current agreement lasts through 2017, and we’ve directed our teams to start working on extending it for the years beyond,” Obama said.
“Our current agreement lasts through 2017, and we’ve directed our teams to start working on extending it for the years beyond,” Obama said.
United States defense equipment is selling like hotcakes in the Middle East, and Israel is concerned. In light of its neighbors' growing military arsenals, the country is imploring the U.S., their premier benefactor, to raise their rations so they can be sure to maintain military dominance in the region.
U.S. and Israeli officials are in initial negotiations over a new 10-year military aid package.
As Defense News reports Thursday, the package, which would extend through 2027, is focusing on a "full spectrum of Israeli concerns, including military modernization needs, new threats from regional instability and the erosion of Israel's so-called qualitative military edge (QME) due to U.S. arms sales in the Mideast."
Under the existing $30 billion aid agreement, signed in 2007, the need for Israel to maintain an "edge" over their regional adversaries was not directly accounted for. The updated, more "holistic" approach - according to Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the U.S. - will ensure the relative superiority of Israel's arsenal will become codified in the agreement.
Reporting on what they describe as "Washington's decades-long, de facto commitment to Israel's QME," Defense Newscontinues:
Oren mentioned "very large [US] contracts to the Middle East" that "raise the question of armies having capabilities similar to our own and how we make sure we can maintain our QME." Nevertheless, the Israeli envoy said Israel is not raising objections to such sales.
Latest available data by the US Congressional Research Service lists $91.9 billion in new US arms agreements to the Near East from 2008 through 2011.
"We understand that if America doesn't sell these weapons, others will," Oren said. "We also understand the fact that each of these sales contributes to hundreds or thousands of American jobs. And we have an interest in a strong and vital American economy." Israel is also asking that the new accord account for defensive measures such as the nearly $2 billion spent fortifying its borders with Egypt, Lebanon and Syria.
This news comes as the U.S.'s extensive military aid to neighboring Egypt has come under fire following the Egyptian military's ongoing massacre of supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi.
The U.S. provides roughly 1.6 billion dollars, including 1.3 billion dollars in sophisticated weaponry, in annual aid to Egypt.
Plans to begin discussions for the new aid package were initially announced during U.S. President Barack Obama's recent trip to Israel. "We've directed our teams to start working on extending it for the years beyond," Obama said in a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
U.S. and Israeli officials are in initial negotiations over a new 10-year military aid package.
As Defense News reports Thursday, the package, which would extend through 2027, is focusing on a "full spectrum of Israeli concerns, including military modernization needs, new threats from regional instability and the erosion of Israel's so-called qualitative military edge (QME) due to U.S. arms sales in the Mideast."
Under the existing $30 billion aid agreement, signed in 2007, the need for Israel to maintain an "edge" over their regional adversaries was not directly accounted for. The updated, more "holistic" approach - according to Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the U.S. - will ensure the relative superiority of Israel's arsenal will become codified in the agreement.
Reporting on what they describe as "Washington's decades-long, de facto commitment to Israel's QME," Defense Newscontinues:
Oren mentioned "very large [US] contracts to the Middle East" that "raise the question of armies having capabilities similar to our own and how we make sure we can maintain our QME." Nevertheless, the Israeli envoy said Israel is not raising objections to such sales.
Latest available data by the US Congressional Research Service lists $91.9 billion in new US arms agreements to the Near East from 2008 through 2011.
"We understand that if America doesn't sell these weapons, others will," Oren said. "We also understand the fact that each of these sales contributes to hundreds or thousands of American jobs. And we have an interest in a strong and vital American economy." Israel is also asking that the new accord account for defensive measures such as the nearly $2 billion spent fortifying its borders with Egypt, Lebanon and Syria.
This news comes as the U.S.'s extensive military aid to neighboring Egypt has come under fire following the Egyptian military's ongoing massacre of supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi.
The U.S. provides roughly 1.6 billion dollars, including 1.3 billion dollars in sophisticated weaponry, in annual aid to Egypt.
Plans to begin discussions for the new aid package were initially announced during U.S. President Barack Obama's recent trip to Israel. "We've directed our teams to start working on extending it for the years beyond," Obama said in a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
16 aug 2013
|
Israel is at the forefront of high-tech weapons development, such as its "Iron Dome" missile defence system
New documentary argues success of country's weapons industry relies on exploiting Palestinians. Israel's secretive arms trade is booming as never before, according to the latest export figures. But it is also coming under mounting scrutiny as some analysts argue that Israel has grown dependent on exploiting the suffering of Palestinians for military and economic gain. A new documentary, called The Lab, has led the way in turning the spotlight on Israel's arms industry. It claims that four million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have become little more than guinea pigs in military experiments designed to enrich a new elite of arms dealers and former generals. The film's release this month in the United States follows news that Israeli sales of weapons and military systems hit a record high last year of $7.5bn, up from $5.8bn the previous year. A decade ago, Israeli exports were worth less than $2bn. Israel is now ranked as one of the world's largest arms exporters - a considerable achievement for a country smaller than New York. Yotam Feldman, director of The Lab and a former journalist with Israel's Haaretz newspaper, says Israel has turned the occupied territories into a laboratory for refining, testing and showcasing its weapons systems. His argument is supported by other analysts who have examined Israel's military industries. Neve Gordon, a politics professor at Ben Gurion University, said: "You only have to read the brochures published by the arms industry in Israel. It's all in there. What they are selling is Israel's 'experience' and expertise gained from the occupation and its conflicts with its neighbours." Another analyst, Jeff Halper, who is writing a book on Israel's role in the international homeland security industry, has gone further. He argues that Israel's success at selling its know-how to powerful states means it has grown ever more averse to returning the occupied territories to the Palestinians in a peace agreement. "The occupied territiories are crucial as a laboratory not just in terms of Israel's internal security, but because they have allowed Israel to become pivotal to the global homeland security industry. |
"Other states need Israel's expertise, and that ensures its place at the table with the big players. It gives Israel international influence way out of keeping with its size. In turn, the hegemonic states exert no real pressure on Israel to give up the occupied territories because of their mutually reinforcing interests."
Suggestions that Israel is exploiting the occupied territories for economic and military gain come at a sensitive moment for Israel, as it returns this week to long-stalled negotiations with the Palestinians. The commitment of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to the talks has already been widely questioned.
Booming arms sales
Israel's growing success at marketing its military wares to overseas buyers was highlighted in June when defence analysts Jane's ranked Israel in sixth place for arms exports, ahead of China and Italy, both major weapons producers.
However, Israel's own figures, which include additional covert trade, place it in fourth place ahead of Britain and Germany, and surpassed only by the United States, Russia and France.
Shemaya Avieli, the head of Sibat, the Israeli defence ministry's agency promoting arms exports, said at a press conference last month that the record figure had been a surprise given the "very significant economic challenge" posed by the worldwide economic downturn.
The arms-related trade is reported to account for somewhere between one-tenth and one-fifth of Israel's exports. The main buyers are Asian countries, especially India, Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and Latin America. The importance of the arms trade to Israel can be gauged by a simple mathematical calculation. Last year Israel earned nearly $1,000 from the arms trade per head of population - several times the per capita income the US derives from military sales.
Israel's reliance on the arms industry was underscored in June when a local court forced officials to publish data revealing that some 6,800 Israelis are actively engaged in exporting arms.
Separately, Ehud Barak, the defence minister in the previous Israeli government, has revealed that 150,000 Israeli households - or about one in 10 people in the country - depend economically on its military industries.
These disclosures aside, Israel has been loath to lift the shroud of secrecy that envelopes much of its arms trade. In recent court hearings it has argued that further revelations would harm "national security and foreign relations".
'People like to buy things that have been tested'
Feldman's film - which won an award at DocAviv, Israel's documentary Oscars - shows arms dealers, army commanders and government ministers speaking frankly about the way the trade has become the engine of Israel's economic success during the global recession.
Leo Gleser, who specialises in developing new weapons markets in Latin America, observes: "The [Israeli] defence minister doesn't only deal with wars, he also makes sure the defence industry is busy selling goods."
The Lab suggests that arms sales have been steadily rising since 2002, when Israel reversed its withdrawals from Palestinian territory initiated by the Oslo accords. The Israeli army reinvaded the West Bank and Gaza in an operation known as Defensive Shield.
In parallel, many retired army officers moved into the new high-tech field. There they found a chance to test their security ideas, including developing systems for long-term surveillance, control and subjugation of "enemy" populations. The biggest surge in the arms trade followed Operation Cast Lead, Israel's month-long attack on Gaza in winter 2008-09 that provoked international condemnation. More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed, as well as 13 Israelis. Sales that year reached $6bn for the first time.
Benjamin Ben Eliezer, a former defence minister turned industry minister, attributes Israel's success to the fact that "people like to buy things that have been tested. If Israel sells weapons, they have been tested, tried out. We can say we've used this 10 years, 15 years."
Nonetheless, The Lab's argument has proved controversial with some security experts. Shlomo Bron, a former air force general who now works at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, rejected the film's premise.
"It may be true that in practice the military uses the occupied territories as a laboratory, but that is just an unfortunate effect of our conflict with the Palestinians. And we sell to other countries only because Israel itself is too small a market."
The film highlights the kind of innovations for which Israel has been feted by overseas security services. It pioneered the airborne drones that are now at the heart of the US programme of extra-judicial executions in the Middle East.
Israel hopes to repeat that success with missile interception systems such as Iron Dome, which was much on display when rockets were fired out of Gaza during last year's Operation Pillar of Cloud.
Futuristic weapons
The Lab also underscores the Israeli arms industry's success in developing futuristic weapons, such as the gun that shoots around corners. The bullet-bending firearm caught Hollywood's attention, with Angelina Jolie wielding it - and effectively marketing it - in the 2008 film Wanted.
Halper believes that Israel has made itself useful to powerful states not just in terms of developing weapons systems, but by becoming particularly successful at what he terms "niche-filling".
"The United States, for example, knows better than anyone how to attack other countries, as it did with Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel can't teach it much on that score. But the US doesn't have much idea what to do after the attack, how to pacify the population. That is where Israel steps in and offers its expertise."
This point is underscored in The Lab. Its unlikeliest stars are former Israeli officers turned academics, whose theories have helped to guide the Israeli army and hi-tech companies in developing new military techniques and strategies much sought-after by foreign militaries.
Shimon Naveh, a military philosopher, is shown pacing through a mock Arab village that provided the canvas on which he devised a new theory of urban warfare to deal with the second Palestinian intifada, after it erupted in late 2000.
In the run-up to an attack in 2002 on Nablus' casbah, much feared by the Israeli army for its labyrinthine layout, he suggested that the soldiers move not through the alleyways, where they would be easy targets, but unseen through the buildings, knocking holes through the walls that separated the houses. Naveh's idea became the key to crushing Palestinian armed resistance, exposing the only places - in the heart of overcrowded cities and refugee camps - where Palestinian fighters could still find sanctuary from Israeli surveillance.
Another expert, Yitzhak Ben Israel, a former general who is now a professor at Tel Aviv University, helped to develop a mathematical formula for the Israeli military that predicts the likely success of assassination programmes to end organised resistance.
Ben Israel's calculus proved to the army that a Palestinian cell planning an attack could be destroyed with high probability by "neutralising" as few as one-fifth of its fighters.
This merging of theory, hardware and repeated "testing" in the field has had armies, police forces and the homeland security industries lining up to buy Israeli know-how, Feldman argues. The lessons learned in Gaza and the West Bank have also had applications in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Yoav Galant, the head of the Israeli army's southern command during Cast Lead, however, criticises the double standards of the international community.
"While certain countries in Europe or Asia condemned us for attacking civilians, they sent their officers here, and I briefed generals from 10 countries," he says. "There's a lot of hypocrisy: they condemn you politically, while they ask you what your trick is, you Israelis, for turning blood into money."
A spokesman for the Israeli defence ministry called the arguments made in The Lab "flawed and illogical".
"Our success in defence industries reflects the fact that Israel has had to be resourceful and creative faced with an existential threat for more than 60 years as well as a series of wars with the Arab world."
Suggestions that Israel is exploiting the occupied territories for economic and military gain come at a sensitive moment for Israel, as it returns this week to long-stalled negotiations with the Palestinians. The commitment of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to the talks has already been widely questioned.
Booming arms sales
Israel's growing success at marketing its military wares to overseas buyers was highlighted in June when defence analysts Jane's ranked Israel in sixth place for arms exports, ahead of China and Italy, both major weapons producers.
However, Israel's own figures, which include additional covert trade, place it in fourth place ahead of Britain and Germany, and surpassed only by the United States, Russia and France.
Shemaya Avieli, the head of Sibat, the Israeli defence ministry's agency promoting arms exports, said at a press conference last month that the record figure had been a surprise given the "very significant economic challenge" posed by the worldwide economic downturn.
The arms-related trade is reported to account for somewhere between one-tenth and one-fifth of Israel's exports. The main buyers are Asian countries, especially India, Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and Latin America. The importance of the arms trade to Israel can be gauged by a simple mathematical calculation. Last year Israel earned nearly $1,000 from the arms trade per head of population - several times the per capita income the US derives from military sales.
Israel's reliance on the arms industry was underscored in June when a local court forced officials to publish data revealing that some 6,800 Israelis are actively engaged in exporting arms.
Separately, Ehud Barak, the defence minister in the previous Israeli government, has revealed that 150,000 Israeli households - or about one in 10 people in the country - depend economically on its military industries.
These disclosures aside, Israel has been loath to lift the shroud of secrecy that envelopes much of its arms trade. In recent court hearings it has argued that further revelations would harm "national security and foreign relations".
'People like to buy things that have been tested'
Feldman's film - which won an award at DocAviv, Israel's documentary Oscars - shows arms dealers, army commanders and government ministers speaking frankly about the way the trade has become the engine of Israel's economic success during the global recession.
Leo Gleser, who specialises in developing new weapons markets in Latin America, observes: "The [Israeli] defence minister doesn't only deal with wars, he also makes sure the defence industry is busy selling goods."
The Lab suggests that arms sales have been steadily rising since 2002, when Israel reversed its withdrawals from Palestinian territory initiated by the Oslo accords. The Israeli army reinvaded the West Bank and Gaza in an operation known as Defensive Shield.
In parallel, many retired army officers moved into the new high-tech field. There they found a chance to test their security ideas, including developing systems for long-term surveillance, control and subjugation of "enemy" populations. The biggest surge in the arms trade followed Operation Cast Lead, Israel's month-long attack on Gaza in winter 2008-09 that provoked international condemnation. More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed, as well as 13 Israelis. Sales that year reached $6bn for the first time.
Benjamin Ben Eliezer, a former defence minister turned industry minister, attributes Israel's success to the fact that "people like to buy things that have been tested. If Israel sells weapons, they have been tested, tried out. We can say we've used this 10 years, 15 years."
Nonetheless, The Lab's argument has proved controversial with some security experts. Shlomo Bron, a former air force general who now works at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, rejected the film's premise.
"It may be true that in practice the military uses the occupied territories as a laboratory, but that is just an unfortunate effect of our conflict with the Palestinians. And we sell to other countries only because Israel itself is too small a market."
The film highlights the kind of innovations for which Israel has been feted by overseas security services. It pioneered the airborne drones that are now at the heart of the US programme of extra-judicial executions in the Middle East.
Israel hopes to repeat that success with missile interception systems such as Iron Dome, which was much on display when rockets were fired out of Gaza during last year's Operation Pillar of Cloud.
Futuristic weapons
The Lab also underscores the Israeli arms industry's success in developing futuristic weapons, such as the gun that shoots around corners. The bullet-bending firearm caught Hollywood's attention, with Angelina Jolie wielding it - and effectively marketing it - in the 2008 film Wanted.
Halper believes that Israel has made itself useful to powerful states not just in terms of developing weapons systems, but by becoming particularly successful at what he terms "niche-filling".
"The United States, for example, knows better than anyone how to attack other countries, as it did with Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel can't teach it much on that score. But the US doesn't have much idea what to do after the attack, how to pacify the population. That is where Israel steps in and offers its expertise."
This point is underscored in The Lab. Its unlikeliest stars are former Israeli officers turned academics, whose theories have helped to guide the Israeli army and hi-tech companies in developing new military techniques and strategies much sought-after by foreign militaries.
Shimon Naveh, a military philosopher, is shown pacing through a mock Arab village that provided the canvas on which he devised a new theory of urban warfare to deal with the second Palestinian intifada, after it erupted in late 2000.
In the run-up to an attack in 2002 on Nablus' casbah, much feared by the Israeli army for its labyrinthine layout, he suggested that the soldiers move not through the alleyways, where they would be easy targets, but unseen through the buildings, knocking holes through the walls that separated the houses. Naveh's idea became the key to crushing Palestinian armed resistance, exposing the only places - in the heart of overcrowded cities and refugee camps - where Palestinian fighters could still find sanctuary from Israeli surveillance.
Another expert, Yitzhak Ben Israel, a former general who is now a professor at Tel Aviv University, helped to develop a mathematical formula for the Israeli military that predicts the likely success of assassination programmes to end organised resistance.
Ben Israel's calculus proved to the army that a Palestinian cell planning an attack could be destroyed with high probability by "neutralising" as few as one-fifth of its fighters.
This merging of theory, hardware and repeated "testing" in the field has had armies, police forces and the homeland security industries lining up to buy Israeli know-how, Feldman argues. The lessons learned in Gaza and the West Bank have also had applications in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Yoav Galant, the head of the Israeli army's southern command during Cast Lead, however, criticises the double standards of the international community.
"While certain countries in Europe or Asia condemned us for attacking civilians, they sent their officers here, and I briefed generals from 10 countries," he says. "There's a lot of hypocrisy: they condemn you politically, while they ask you what your trick is, you Israelis, for turning blood into money."
A spokesman for the Israeli defence ministry called the arguments made in The Lab "flawed and illogical".
"Our success in defence industries reflects the fact that Israel has had to be resourceful and creative faced with an existential threat for more than 60 years as well as a series of wars with the Arab world."
30 july 2013
Tamil protesters outside the Sri Lankan consulate in Toronto, May 2009
Towards the end of 2008, I joined thousands in Toronto to protest Israel’s attack on Gaza. Like people all over the world, we called for an immediate end to the war. At York University, where I was a student, we mobilized the campus to defend Palestinian rights.
A few months later, bombs were falling on my own people — in the Vanni region of northern Sri Lanka. And once again, we hit Toronto’s streets in protest.
I realized then that even though our homelands are oceans apart, Palestinians and Tamils have much in common.
Through the “war on terror,” the Israeli and Sri Lankan armies have waged war on civilian populations.
The Rome-based Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal has commissioned an independent report [PDF] that finds the Sri Lankan state guilty of bombing hospitals, humanitarian operations and even government-declared “safe zones,” in clear violation of international humanitarian law (“Preliminary report,” January 2010 [PDF]).
A United Nations report estimates that from January to May 2009, between 40,000 and 75,000 persons were killed (“Report of the secretary-general’s panel of experts on accountability in Sri Lanka,” 31 March 2011).[PDF]
The Sri Lankan government’s own statistical data reveal that almost 147,000 persons remain unaccounted for: no one knows if they are held in prison, injured, or dead (“146,679 Vanni people missing within a year of war: Bishop of Mannaar,” TamilNet, 12 January 2011).
Major arms supplier
But there are more direct connections.
Israel has been a major arms supplier to Sri Lanka’s government, as well as providing it with strategic military advice. With permission from the United States, Israel has sold Sri Lanka consignments of Kfir jets and drones.[PDF]
Israel has also supplied the Dvora patrol boats to Sri Lanka, which have been used extensively against Tamils (“Sri Lanka learns to counter Sea Tigers’ swarm tactics,” Jane’s Navy International, March 2009 [PDF]).
And Israel has also provided training to the Special Task Force, a brutal commando unit in the Sri Lanka police.
The similarities don’t end there. Both Palestinians and Tamils have been subjected to a process of settler-based colonialism.
In the 1980s, Israel offered advice to Sri Lanka as it built Sinhala-only armed settlements in the eastern province, which aimed to create buffer zones around Tamil-majority populations (the Sinhalese are the ethnic majority of Sri Lanka) (“Sinhala academic blames US-UK axis for genocide in Tamil homeland,” TamilNet, 15 April 2012).
The strategy employed was the same as Israel’s in the West Bank: to destroy the local population’s claim to national existence and render invalid any political solution based on popular sovereignty.
Just like in Palestine, land seizures and settlement programs in Sri Lanka are fragmenting the Tamil people’s national and social coherence throughout their historic homeland in the north and east of the island. As exiled journalist and human rights worker Nirmanusan Balasundaram wrote earlier this year, the effect is to undermine any possibility of creating a contiguous national homeland (“Sri Lanka: The intentions behind the land-grabbing process,” Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, 30 April 2013).
Sham dialogue
Within the occupied West Bank, this process takes place against the backdrop of “dialogue,” which more and more Palestinians see as a sham as Israeli settlements spread across their land. After the 2009 war, the Sri Lankan government used the rhetoric of “reconstruction” and “redevelopment” to obscure its process of rapid colonization.
For Tamils, “post-war development” has become another form of counter-insurgency warfare, whereby Sinhala settlements, state-led militarization and the open gerrymandering of constituencies all threaten the Tamils’ historic relationship to their homeland.
The Palestinian experience — in particular, the Oslo accords signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993 — has been instructive for Tamils.
An international agreement with India foresees Sri Lanka holding elections this September for a Northern Provincial Council, supposedly another gesture of reconciliation. The US is backing the election, despite serious reservations within Tamil civil society and the diaspora.
The council, if elected, would provide Tamils with only the perception of self-determination — similar to the experience of the Palestinian Authority — while the military occupation continues to dominate every aspect of civilian life. The council’s powers would remain under the control of the Sinhalese-dominated government in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, and its governor would be a direct appointment of the Sri Lankan president (see “Much ado about nothing,” Colombo Telegraph, 21 April 2013).
Regardless of the façade of self-government, the crime of apartheid remains a fact of life for Tamils in Sri Lanka, as it does for Palestinians under Israeli rule.
Sri Lanka’s treatment of the Tamils in the north and east of the island meets the definition of apartheid contained in the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.
Apartheid involves the domination of one racial or ethnic group over another. The convention is not restricted to the particular manifestation of apartheid in South Africa or to majorities being oppressed by minorities. Instead, it condemns practices that resemble apartheid — of which there is more than one version.
Without a doubt, there are critical differences between the oppression faced by Palestinians and the oppression faced by Tamils (and by black South Africans, for that matter). Nevertheless, both Israel and Sri Lanka are characterized by discrimination, repression and territorial fragmentation through stolen land.
The unitary Sri Lankan state structure constitutionally places all power of the state exclusively in the hands of the Sinhalese people, while denying Tamils equal access to education, their own language, their land, and self-determination.
Common experience
In light of this common experience, the Palestinian and Tamil peoples are enduring a slow — but relentless — genocide. The massacres in Gaza and the Vanni were carried out to kill civilians, cause serious bodily and mental harm, and impose conditions of life that produce partial and gradual physical destruction — all with little meaningful opposition from global capitals. Both can be considered cases of genocide, as it is defined by the United Nations.
In the case of Sri Lanka, as long as it uses the language of “reconciliation,” it will continue to pursue the same strategy and enjoy praise from major powers.
But the realization of our peoples’ aspirations does not depend on the whims of foreign governments. It rests with the Tamil people — as the aspirations for a liberated Palestine rest with the Palestinians — and the support of a mobilized and engaged international solidarity movement. By supporting each other’s struggles, and by learning from each other’s histories, we can get one step closer to a more just world.
For both Palestinians and Tamils, the attacks of 2008 and 2009 were part of a broader history of dispossession, occupation and genocide. Our people have a lot in common in the struggle for peace and justice. In fact, our oppressors appear to have lots in common too.
Krisna Saravanamuttu is an activist based in Toronto, Canada. He is a member of the steering committee of the Canadian Peace Alliance, and is the spokesperson of the National Council of Canadian Tamils. Follow him on Twitter: @KrisnaS85.
Towards the end of 2008, I joined thousands in Toronto to protest Israel’s attack on Gaza. Like people all over the world, we called for an immediate end to the war. At York University, where I was a student, we mobilized the campus to defend Palestinian rights.
A few months later, bombs were falling on my own people — in the Vanni region of northern Sri Lanka. And once again, we hit Toronto’s streets in protest.
I realized then that even though our homelands are oceans apart, Palestinians and Tamils have much in common.
Through the “war on terror,” the Israeli and Sri Lankan armies have waged war on civilian populations.
The Rome-based Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal has commissioned an independent report [PDF] that finds the Sri Lankan state guilty of bombing hospitals, humanitarian operations and even government-declared “safe zones,” in clear violation of international humanitarian law (“Preliminary report,” January 2010 [PDF]).
A United Nations report estimates that from January to May 2009, between 40,000 and 75,000 persons were killed (“Report of the secretary-general’s panel of experts on accountability in Sri Lanka,” 31 March 2011).[PDF]
The Sri Lankan government’s own statistical data reveal that almost 147,000 persons remain unaccounted for: no one knows if they are held in prison, injured, or dead (“146,679 Vanni people missing within a year of war: Bishop of Mannaar,” TamilNet, 12 January 2011).
Major arms supplier
But there are more direct connections.
Israel has been a major arms supplier to Sri Lanka’s government, as well as providing it with strategic military advice. With permission from the United States, Israel has sold Sri Lanka consignments of Kfir jets and drones.[PDF]
Israel has also supplied the Dvora patrol boats to Sri Lanka, which have been used extensively against Tamils (“Sri Lanka learns to counter Sea Tigers’ swarm tactics,” Jane’s Navy International, March 2009 [PDF]).
And Israel has also provided training to the Special Task Force, a brutal commando unit in the Sri Lanka police.
The similarities don’t end there. Both Palestinians and Tamils have been subjected to a process of settler-based colonialism.
In the 1980s, Israel offered advice to Sri Lanka as it built Sinhala-only armed settlements in the eastern province, which aimed to create buffer zones around Tamil-majority populations (the Sinhalese are the ethnic majority of Sri Lanka) (“Sinhala academic blames US-UK axis for genocide in Tamil homeland,” TamilNet, 15 April 2012).
The strategy employed was the same as Israel’s in the West Bank: to destroy the local population’s claim to national existence and render invalid any political solution based on popular sovereignty.
Just like in Palestine, land seizures and settlement programs in Sri Lanka are fragmenting the Tamil people’s national and social coherence throughout their historic homeland in the north and east of the island. As exiled journalist and human rights worker Nirmanusan Balasundaram wrote earlier this year, the effect is to undermine any possibility of creating a contiguous national homeland (“Sri Lanka: The intentions behind the land-grabbing process,” Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, 30 April 2013).
Sham dialogue
Within the occupied West Bank, this process takes place against the backdrop of “dialogue,” which more and more Palestinians see as a sham as Israeli settlements spread across their land. After the 2009 war, the Sri Lankan government used the rhetoric of “reconstruction” and “redevelopment” to obscure its process of rapid colonization.
For Tamils, “post-war development” has become another form of counter-insurgency warfare, whereby Sinhala settlements, state-led militarization and the open gerrymandering of constituencies all threaten the Tamils’ historic relationship to their homeland.
The Palestinian experience — in particular, the Oslo accords signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993 — has been instructive for Tamils.
An international agreement with India foresees Sri Lanka holding elections this September for a Northern Provincial Council, supposedly another gesture of reconciliation. The US is backing the election, despite serious reservations within Tamil civil society and the diaspora.
The council, if elected, would provide Tamils with only the perception of self-determination — similar to the experience of the Palestinian Authority — while the military occupation continues to dominate every aspect of civilian life. The council’s powers would remain under the control of the Sinhalese-dominated government in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, and its governor would be a direct appointment of the Sri Lankan president (see “Much ado about nothing,” Colombo Telegraph, 21 April 2013).
Regardless of the façade of self-government, the crime of apartheid remains a fact of life for Tamils in Sri Lanka, as it does for Palestinians under Israeli rule.
Sri Lanka’s treatment of the Tamils in the north and east of the island meets the definition of apartheid contained in the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.
Apartheid involves the domination of one racial or ethnic group over another. The convention is not restricted to the particular manifestation of apartheid in South Africa or to majorities being oppressed by minorities. Instead, it condemns practices that resemble apartheid — of which there is more than one version.
Without a doubt, there are critical differences between the oppression faced by Palestinians and the oppression faced by Tamils (and by black South Africans, for that matter). Nevertheless, both Israel and Sri Lanka are characterized by discrimination, repression and territorial fragmentation through stolen land.
The unitary Sri Lankan state structure constitutionally places all power of the state exclusively in the hands of the Sinhalese people, while denying Tamils equal access to education, their own language, their land, and self-determination.
Common experience
In light of this common experience, the Palestinian and Tamil peoples are enduring a slow — but relentless — genocide. The massacres in Gaza and the Vanni were carried out to kill civilians, cause serious bodily and mental harm, and impose conditions of life that produce partial and gradual physical destruction — all with little meaningful opposition from global capitals. Both can be considered cases of genocide, as it is defined by the United Nations.
In the case of Sri Lanka, as long as it uses the language of “reconciliation,” it will continue to pursue the same strategy and enjoy praise from major powers.
But the realization of our peoples’ aspirations does not depend on the whims of foreign governments. It rests with the Tamil people — as the aspirations for a liberated Palestine rest with the Palestinians — and the support of a mobilized and engaged international solidarity movement. By supporting each other’s struggles, and by learning from each other’s histories, we can get one step closer to a more just world.
For both Palestinians and Tamils, the attacks of 2008 and 2009 were part of a broader history of dispossession, occupation and genocide. Our people have a lot in common in the struggle for peace and justice. In fact, our oppressors appear to have lots in common too.
Krisna Saravanamuttu is an activist based in Toronto, Canada. He is a member of the steering committee of the Canadian Peace Alliance, and is the spokesperson of the National Council of Canadian Tamils. Follow him on Twitter: @KrisnaS85.
29 july 2013
A Barak 8 missile battery is shown in the photo. Barak 8 is a surface-to-air missile co-developed by the Israeli regime and India
The Israeli military has begun equipping its main warships with Barak 8 - a medium-range surface-to-air missile.
The missile is being installed on Sa’ar 5-class warships, Israeli media reported on Sunday.
The new missiles are co-developed by India and Israel.
The missile’s radar allows operators to simultaneously engage multiple targets, and intercept an incoming missile as close as 500 meters from a naval craft.
The Tel Aviv regime had put off the equipping process for years.
The missiles, which have a maximum operational range of 70 kilometers, are aimed at countering Russian-produced “ship killing cruise missiles” said to be in Syria’s possession.
There has been no comment by the Israeli military.
On July 5, US officials confirmed that Israeli warplanes bombarded an arsenal containing advanced Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship missiles in Syria, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported, citing the CNN.
Other Israeli media outlets said Tel Aviv launched the July 5 strike in order to hit the Russian-made missiles.
The Israeli regime is already believed to have been involved in at least three airstrikes against Syria this year.
Last month, the Israeli regime confirmed that it had deployed nuclear-tipped missiles on Dolphin-class submarines imported from Germany.
The Dolphins are small, diesel-powered submarines, designed for coastal patrols and are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
The Israeli military has begun equipping its main warships with Barak 8 - a medium-range surface-to-air missile.
The missile is being installed on Sa’ar 5-class warships, Israeli media reported on Sunday.
The new missiles are co-developed by India and Israel.
The missile’s radar allows operators to simultaneously engage multiple targets, and intercept an incoming missile as close as 500 meters from a naval craft.
The Tel Aviv regime had put off the equipping process for years.
The missiles, which have a maximum operational range of 70 kilometers, are aimed at countering Russian-produced “ship killing cruise missiles” said to be in Syria’s possession.
There has been no comment by the Israeli military.
On July 5, US officials confirmed that Israeli warplanes bombarded an arsenal containing advanced Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship missiles in Syria, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported, citing the CNN.
Other Israeli media outlets said Tel Aviv launched the July 5 strike in order to hit the Russian-made missiles.
The Israeli regime is already believed to have been involved in at least three airstrikes against Syria this year.
Last month, the Israeli regime confirmed that it had deployed nuclear-tipped missiles on Dolphin-class submarines imported from Germany.
The Dolphins are small, diesel-powered submarines, designed for coastal patrols and are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
27 july 2013
Israeli soldiers sit atop a tank as they watch the Syrian border in the Golan Heights July 3, 2013
Saudi Arabia reportedly reaches a deal with Israeli army to buy Israeli weapons for militants fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
Israeli Radio reported that Saudi Arabia signed a 50-million-dollar deal with Israeli army to supply the foreign-backed militants with old Israeli military equipment and arms.
The reports added that the weapons include different kinds of anti-tank missiles, military vehicles, artillery equipment, and night vision devices.
Other sources have quoted Takfiri sources as saying that the Israeli weapons will be used to maintain control over Aleppo and its surrounding areas in northern Syria.
The report came as The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported last month that Saudi Arabia has provided the Takfiri militants with Russian-made Konkurs anti-tank missiles.
It quoted militant sources as saying that they had received the first batch of the heavy weaponry from Saudi Arabia in northern city of Aleppo.
On June 14, US President Barack Obama ordered his administration to provide the militants with weapons, claiming that the Syrian government had used “chemical weapons” against the militants and thus crossed Washington’s “red line.” Damascus has rejected the allegation as “lies.”
Israeli President Shimon Peres voiced support for Washington’s arming of the Takfiri militants in Syria. Takfiris accuse most Islamic sects of being infidels.
However, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned other states against providing weapons to the militants in Syria, saying that the arms could end up in Europe one day.
The Syrian government says the West and its regional allies - especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey - are supporting the militants.
Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since 2011. According to the United Nations, more than 100,000 people have been killed and millions of others displaced in the violence.
Saudi Arabia reportedly reaches a deal with Israeli army to buy Israeli weapons for militants fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
Israeli Radio reported that Saudi Arabia signed a 50-million-dollar deal with Israeli army to supply the foreign-backed militants with old Israeli military equipment and arms.
The reports added that the weapons include different kinds of anti-tank missiles, military vehicles, artillery equipment, and night vision devices.
Other sources have quoted Takfiri sources as saying that the Israeli weapons will be used to maintain control over Aleppo and its surrounding areas in northern Syria.
The report came as The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported last month that Saudi Arabia has provided the Takfiri militants with Russian-made Konkurs anti-tank missiles.
It quoted militant sources as saying that they had received the first batch of the heavy weaponry from Saudi Arabia in northern city of Aleppo.
On June 14, US President Barack Obama ordered his administration to provide the militants with weapons, claiming that the Syrian government had used “chemical weapons” against the militants and thus crossed Washington’s “red line.” Damascus has rejected the allegation as “lies.”
Israeli President Shimon Peres voiced support for Washington’s arming of the Takfiri militants in Syria. Takfiris accuse most Islamic sects of being infidels.
However, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned other states against providing weapons to the militants in Syria, saying that the arms could end up in Europe one day.
The Syrian government says the West and its regional allies - especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey - are supporting the militants.
Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since 2011. According to the United Nations, more than 100,000 people have been killed and millions of others displaced in the violence.
23 july 2013
Weeks after budget cuts, Defense Ministry reveals Israel's arms export totaled $7.4 billion last year
Israel's export of defense-related products registered an all time record in 2012 totaling $7.4 billion, compared to $5.8 billion in 2011, according to Defense Ministry data. The main export destinations were markets in Asia and the Pacific Ocean. The two most lucrative deals were the sale of a satellite and advanced spy planes to Italy.
Shmaya Avieli, head of the Foreign Defense Assistance and Defense Export Department estimated that export in 2013 will total some $4.3 billion adding that Israel is considering new deals with Turkey. "We never halted transactions with Turkey," he said.
Despite the surge in export, 2012 saw a decrease in the revenues of small and medium industries which totaled $500 million.
According to the Defense Ministry, this is the result of a global trend of growing reliance on local industries, particularly in Asia and South America.
The defense establishment admitted to difficulties in marketing various components of the Iron Dome system. "We are making efforts to market them as well as a system that intercepts anti-tank missiles. We have to be patient," Avieli said.
Israel's export of defense-related products registered an all time record in 2012 totaling $7.4 billion, compared to $5.8 billion in 2011, according to Defense Ministry data. The main export destinations were markets in Asia and the Pacific Ocean. The two most lucrative deals were the sale of a satellite and advanced spy planes to Italy.
Shmaya Avieli, head of the Foreign Defense Assistance and Defense Export Department estimated that export in 2013 will total some $4.3 billion adding that Israel is considering new deals with Turkey. "We never halted transactions with Turkey," he said.
Despite the surge in export, 2012 saw a decrease in the revenues of small and medium industries which totaled $500 million.
According to the Defense Ministry, this is the result of a global trend of growing reliance on local industries, particularly in Asia and South America.
The defense establishment admitted to difficulties in marketing various components of the Iron Dome system. "We are making efforts to market them as well as a system that intercepts anti-tank missiles. We have to be patient," Avieli said.
18 july 2013
The UK government named Israel as being a “country of human rights concern.”
The Commons Committees on Arms Export Controls (CAEC) revealed that the UK approved more than 3000 arms export licences totalling over £ 12 billion to 27 countries despite their poor human rights records. “Severe concern” was raised specifically about arms exports to Israel that, at £ 7.8 billion, were worth more than half of the total.
The UK government granted 381 export licenses to Israel for equipment such as: all-wheel drive vehicles with ballistic protection, body armour, military helmets, components for pistols, components for assault rifles, military support vehicles, and small arms ammunition. However, most of the value of UK arms exports to Israel consisted of cryptographic equipment.
John Stanley, the chairman of the Commons Committees on Arms Export Controls (CAEC), commented: "[the] scale of the extant strategic licences to the FCO's 27 countries of human rights concern puts into stark relief the inherent conflict between the government's arms exports and human rights policies." MP Richard Burden, a member of the CAEC, raised further concern about the arms exports and claimed that “the UK’s human rights policy is being fundamentally undermined by the scale and nature of arms exports licenses being approved by the Government.”
The CAEC chairman John Stanley added that, "’[the] government should apply significantly more cautious judgments when considering arms export licence applications for goods to authoritarian regimes‚ which might be used to facilitate internal repression‚ in contravention of the government's stated policy." The UK Government’s policy on arms exports states that: “We will not issue licences where we judge there is a clear risk that the proposed export might provoke or prolong regional or internal conflicts, or which might be used to facilitate internal repression.”
However, CAEC member Richard Burden – who is also the Chair of the Britain Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group – raised specific concerns about UK arms exports to Israel, and questioned the scale of the exports to the country considering that “[the] UK Government regularly expresses concern about Israel’s breaches of international law and human rights abuses.” He added that the UK Government faces serious questions about its arms exports to Israel.
The Commons Committees on Arms Export Controls (CAEC) revealed that the UK approved more than 3000 arms export licences totalling over £ 12 billion to 27 countries despite their poor human rights records. “Severe concern” was raised specifically about arms exports to Israel that, at £ 7.8 billion, were worth more than half of the total.
The UK government granted 381 export licenses to Israel for equipment such as: all-wheel drive vehicles with ballistic protection, body armour, military helmets, components for pistols, components for assault rifles, military support vehicles, and small arms ammunition. However, most of the value of UK arms exports to Israel consisted of cryptographic equipment.
John Stanley, the chairman of the Commons Committees on Arms Export Controls (CAEC), commented: "[the] scale of the extant strategic licences to the FCO's 27 countries of human rights concern puts into stark relief the inherent conflict between the government's arms exports and human rights policies." MP Richard Burden, a member of the CAEC, raised further concern about the arms exports and claimed that “the UK’s human rights policy is being fundamentally undermined by the scale and nature of arms exports licenses being approved by the Government.”
The CAEC chairman John Stanley added that, "’[the] government should apply significantly more cautious judgments when considering arms export licence applications for goods to authoritarian regimes‚ which might be used to facilitate internal repression‚ in contravention of the government's stated policy." The UK Government’s policy on arms exports states that: “We will not issue licences where we judge there is a clear risk that the proposed export might provoke or prolong regional or internal conflicts, or which might be used to facilitate internal repression.”
However, CAEC member Richard Burden – who is also the Chair of the Britain Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group – raised specific concerns about UK arms exports to Israel, and questioned the scale of the exports to the country considering that “[the] UK Government regularly expresses concern about Israel’s breaches of international law and human rights abuses.” He added that the UK Government faces serious questions about its arms exports to Israel.
16 july 2013
Thousands of Israelis are dealing with arms exports in the country.
Israel says there are 6,784 Israelis dealing with arms exports in response to the request to disclose the name of individuals and companies involved in arms deals.
Tel-Aviv has said that it can’t reveal the identity of the individuals and companies due to security issues and foreign relations.
However, the information released indicated that there had been as many as 6783 individuals dealing with security exports by the end of the year 2012.
The details also revealed that the Tel Aviv regime had issued 1,900 marketing permits and 8,716 export permits.
On June 24, IHS Jane's, a business intelligence company working on military as well as security topics, released a report notifying that Israel had become the sixth largest arms exporter in the world. The report also added that Israel had overtaken a number of countries including Italy, China, Canada and Sweden in the global arms trade.
The United States and Russia, with the export of over USD 28 billion and USD 10 billion respectively in 2012, ranked the world’s top arms exporters, while France with USD 4.5 billion in sales and the United Kingdom with some USD 4 billion in sales ranked third and fourth.
According to the report, Germany was the world’s fifth-largest arms exporter with an export total of USD 3 billion.
The report listed India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Egypt, South Korea, Australia and Iraq as the major importers of arms.
On April 22, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Israeli Minister of Military Affairs Moshe Yaalon finalized an arms deal worth USD 10 billion.
"Minister Yaalon and I agreed that the United States will make available to Israel a set of advanced new military capabilities ... including anti-radiation missiles and advanced radars for fighter jets, KC135 refueling aircraft, and most significantly the V-22 Osprey…," Hagel said in a joint press conference in Tel Aviv.
Israel says there are 6,784 Israelis dealing with arms exports in response to the request to disclose the name of individuals and companies involved in arms deals.
Tel-Aviv has said that it can’t reveal the identity of the individuals and companies due to security issues and foreign relations.
However, the information released indicated that there had been as many as 6783 individuals dealing with security exports by the end of the year 2012.
The details also revealed that the Tel Aviv regime had issued 1,900 marketing permits and 8,716 export permits.
On June 24, IHS Jane's, a business intelligence company working on military as well as security topics, released a report notifying that Israel had become the sixth largest arms exporter in the world. The report also added that Israel had overtaken a number of countries including Italy, China, Canada and Sweden in the global arms trade.
The United States and Russia, with the export of over USD 28 billion and USD 10 billion respectively in 2012, ranked the world’s top arms exporters, while France with USD 4.5 billion in sales and the United Kingdom with some USD 4 billion in sales ranked third and fourth.
According to the report, Germany was the world’s fifth-largest arms exporter with an export total of USD 3 billion.
The report listed India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Egypt, South Korea, Australia and Iraq as the major importers of arms.
On April 22, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Israeli Minister of Military Affairs Moshe Yaalon finalized an arms deal worth USD 10 billion.
"Minister Yaalon and I agreed that the United States will make available to Israel a set of advanced new military capabilities ... including anti-radiation missiles and advanced radars for fighter jets, KC135 refueling aircraft, and most significantly the V-22 Osprey…," Hagel said in a joint press conference in Tel Aviv.
13 july 2013
"The scheduled test was pre-planned… and was carried out as expected," it added.
Israeli media, citing analysts, said the test was very likely related to Israel's Jericho ballistic missile system.
Aalysts say the most modern version of the system, the Jericho III, has a range of between 5,000 and 11,000 kilometers, and can carry a warhead of up to one ton.
The last test of a Jericho III missile was conducted in November 2011.
In 2008, the Israeli military test-fired another long-range ballistic missile, threatening to strike Iran.
The Israeli regime is widely believed to be the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. The regime reportedly maintains between 200 and 400 atomic warheads, but under its policy of so-called nuclear ambiguity, it has never denied nor confirmed its possession of the weapons of mass destruction.
Furthermore, the Israeli regime has never allowed any inspection of its nuclear facilities and continues to defy international calls to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Israeli media, citing analysts, said the test was very likely related to Israel's Jericho ballistic missile system.
Aalysts say the most modern version of the system, the Jericho III, has a range of between 5,000 and 11,000 kilometers, and can carry a warhead of up to one ton.
The last test of a Jericho III missile was conducted in November 2011.
In 2008, the Israeli military test-fired another long-range ballistic missile, threatening to strike Iran.
The Israeli regime is widely believed to be the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. The regime reportedly maintains between 200 and 400 atomic warheads, but under its policy of so-called nuclear ambiguity, it has never denied nor confirmed its possession of the weapons of mass destruction.
Furthermore, the Israeli regime has never allowed any inspection of its nuclear facilities and continues to defy international calls to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
29 june 2013
The Israeli regime has received the first of three C-130J Super Hercules airlifters from the US aerospace company, Lockheed Martin.
The aircraft was delivered to the Israeli Air Force (IAF) during a ceremony at the company’s Aeronautics production facility on Wednesday.
The IAF named the aircraft “Shimshon,” a Hebrew word for Samson.
The Lockheed Martin’s vice president and general manager, George Shultz, said the new C-130J “builds on the tradition of its predecessors” with “unique capabilities that are not only proven, but without equal.”
“With its glass cockpit and modern digital avionics, the C-130J has proven it performs in all environments: hot, cold, dirt and sand,” he also said.
The aircraft will move into a modification program and will arrive in Israel next year.
The Tel Aviv regime ordered three C-130Js through a Foreign Military Sale (FMS) contract with the American government.
The aircraft was delivered to the Israeli Air Force (IAF) during a ceremony at the company’s Aeronautics production facility on Wednesday.
The IAF named the aircraft “Shimshon,” a Hebrew word for Samson.
The Lockheed Martin’s vice president and general manager, George Shultz, said the new C-130J “builds on the tradition of its predecessors” with “unique capabilities that are not only proven, but without equal.”
“With its glass cockpit and modern digital avionics, the C-130J has proven it performs in all environments: hot, cold, dirt and sand,” he also said.
The aircraft will move into a modification program and will arrive in Israel next year.
The Tel Aviv regime ordered three C-130Js through a Foreign Military Sale (FMS) contract with the American government.
The USA recently supplied the Israeli army with advanced military transport aircraft of the type “Super Hercules”, Hebrew press reports said. The Hebrew website Walla said on Friday that the four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft is capable of flying higher, farther and faster than previous C-130 models while carrying more cargo.
It said that the Israeli army received one of three planes of that type from the Lockheed Martin Corporation, adding that the Israeli air force was holding talks with Washington to supply it with more such aircraft.
It said that the Israeli army received one of three planes of that type from the Lockheed Martin Corporation, adding that the Israeli air force was holding talks with Washington to supply it with more such aircraft.
26 june 2013
A newly released military intelligence report says Israel has become the sixth largest arms exporter in the world.
The report released on June 24 by IHS Jane's, a business intelligence company working on military as well as security topics, said Israel overtook a number of countries including Italy, China, Canada and Sweden in the global arms trade.
“Israel’s exports increased 74 percent to USD 2.4 billion and their market share has risen from 2.4 percent to 3.5 percent. Mainly with sales to India,” the report added.
The United States and Russia, with the export of over USD 28 billion and USD 10 billion respectively in 2012, have been the world’s top arms exporters, while France with USD 4.5 billion in sales and the United Kingdom with some USD 4 billion in sales rank third and fourth.
The world’s fifth-largest arms exporter is Germany with an export total of USD 3 billion, the report noted.
The major importers of arms are India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Egypt, South Korea, Australia and Iraq, the report said.
In May, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said the United States and Russia hold market shares of 30 percent and 26 percent respectively in arms exporters.
The report released on June 24 by IHS Jane's, a business intelligence company working on military as well as security topics, said Israel overtook a number of countries including Italy, China, Canada and Sweden in the global arms trade.
“Israel’s exports increased 74 percent to USD 2.4 billion and their market share has risen from 2.4 percent to 3.5 percent. Mainly with sales to India,” the report added.
The United States and Russia, with the export of over USD 28 billion and USD 10 billion respectively in 2012, have been the world’s top arms exporters, while France with USD 4.5 billion in sales and the United Kingdom with some USD 4 billion in sales rank third and fourth.
The world’s fifth-largest arms exporter is Germany with an export total of USD 3 billion, the report noted.
The major importers of arms are India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Egypt, South Korea, Australia and Iraq, the report said.
In May, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said the United States and Russia hold market shares of 30 percent and 26 percent respectively in arms exporters.
11 june 2013
The British Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, has reported that Israel sold, over the past five years, military and security equipment for four Arab countries in addition to Pakistan.
In its report, which deals with military and security equipment exports, the department said that Israel exported the weapons to Algeria, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.
The department oversees all military and security exports, and publishes regular reports related to requests for arms purchases, its reports include all approved and denied permits for purchasing weapons, military equipment and civilian items that could be used for security and military operations.
Israeli daily, Haaretz, have reported that Britain processed hundreds of applications filed by Israel for the purchase of military items in the period between 2008 and 2012. The items in question contain British components used by the Israeli military, or exported by Tel Aviv to other countries.
The department listed countries that Israel requested permits to export weapons to, including Muslim countries that do not have diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv.
It said that, in 2011, Israel filed applications for purchasing British military components, such as electronic warfare systems, parts for fighter jets and aircraft systems, optic acquisition system, Head-up Cockpit Displays and components for raining aircraft, Haaretz said.
In 2010, Tel Aviv asked for permits to sell HUD (head-up Cockpit Displays) systems with British parts, to a number of countries, including Morocco and Egypt.
Tel Aviv also requested permits, in 2009, to export to Algeria aerial observation systems, helmets for pilots, radar systems, military communication systems, navigation systems, drone components, and systems that disrupt ballistic equipment, optical target acquisition systems and airborne radars.
In the same year, Israel also asked for permits to sell HUD systems to Morocco, in addition to asking for permits to supply the United Arab Emirates with components for drone, aerial refueling systems, ground and airborne radars, helmets for pilots, parts for fighter jets, thermal imaging and electronic warfare, and systems that disrupt missile launchers.
The British report indicated that, over the past five years, Israel also sold weapons and military gear to a number of countries including Turkey, South Korea, India, Singapore, Japan, Sweden, Canada, Australia, the United States, Portugal, Holland, Italy, New Zealand, Germany, Colombia, Spain, Thailand, Macedonia, Brazil, Chile, Belgium, Vietnam, Switzerland, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Ireland, Thailand, Poland, Equatorial Guyana, Argentina, Finland and Luxembourg.
Furthermore, Haaretz said that Britain denied Israeli applications for the exports of optical target acquisition systems to Russia, aircraft engines to Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and India, in addition to satellite radar to India, and gun mounting systems to Turkmenistan.
According to the report, Tel Aviv leads worldwide in various warfare systems, including Electronic Systems, Cockpit Displays, Drones and Security Exports.
Israel selling military wares to Mideast countries, Britain says
Report by British government agency reveals that Egypt, Algeria, Pakistan, Morocco and UAE were among clients of Israeli defense industries.
Israel has exported security equipment over the past five years to Pakistan and four Arab countries, according to a British government report. The report, which deals with British government permits for arms and security equipment exports, says that in addition to Pakistan, Israel has exported such equipment to Egypt, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.
The report was released by Britain’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which oversees security exports and publishes regular reports on permits granted or denied to purchase arms, military equipment or civilian items that are monitored because they can be put to security uses.
From January 2008 to December 2012, British authorities processed hundreds of Israeli applications to purchase military items containing British components for use by the Israel Defense Forces, or to go into systems exported to third countries.
The British reports also list the countries to which Israel sought to export the items. Among Israel’s clients are Muslim countries with which it does not have diplomatic ties. According to the report, in 2011 Israel sought to purchase British components to export radar systems to Pakistan, as well as electronic warfare systems, Head-up Cockpit Displays (HUD), parts for fighter jets and aircraft engines, optic target acquisition systems, components of training aircraft, and military electronic systems. In 2010, Israel applied for permits to export electronic warfare systems and HUDs with components from Britain to Pakistan. Also in 2010, Israel sought permits to supply Egypt and Morocco with Israeli electronic warfare systems and HUD systems that use British parts.
In 2009, Israel requested permits from British authorities to export to Algeria aerial observation systems, pilots’ helmets and HUDs, radar systems and communications systems for military aircraft, military navigation systems, drone components, systems to disrupt ballistic systems, airborne radar and optical target acquisition systems. Israel also sought to export to Morocco electronic warfare systems and HUDs in 2009.
In that same year, Israel asked for permits to supply components for drones to the United Arab Emirates, as well as pilots’ helmets and aerial refueling systems, ground radar, components for fighter jets, systems to disrupt missile launches, airborne radar systems, and thermal imaging and electronic warfare equipment.
Israel’s other clients for military exports over the past five years, according to the British reports, include India, Singapore, Turkey, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Sweden, Portugal, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Colombia, Holland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Thailand, Macedonia, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Switzerland, Ecuador, Mexico, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Equatorial Guyana, Poland and Argentina.
Britain turned down Israel’s request to obtain military systems intended for export to Russia (optical target acquisition systems), Sri Lanka (aircraft engines), India (aircraft engines and satellite radar), Turkmenistan (gun mountings) and Azerbaijan (aircraft engines).
Israel’s leading security export products, according to the British reports, are drones, electronic warfare systems, radar and cockpit displays.
In its report, which deals with military and security equipment exports, the department said that Israel exported the weapons to Algeria, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.
The department oversees all military and security exports, and publishes regular reports related to requests for arms purchases, its reports include all approved and denied permits for purchasing weapons, military equipment and civilian items that could be used for security and military operations.
Israeli daily, Haaretz, have reported that Britain processed hundreds of applications filed by Israel for the purchase of military items in the period between 2008 and 2012. The items in question contain British components used by the Israeli military, or exported by Tel Aviv to other countries.
The department listed countries that Israel requested permits to export weapons to, including Muslim countries that do not have diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv.
It said that, in 2011, Israel filed applications for purchasing British military components, such as electronic warfare systems, parts for fighter jets and aircraft systems, optic acquisition system, Head-up Cockpit Displays and components for raining aircraft, Haaretz said.
In 2010, Tel Aviv asked for permits to sell HUD (head-up Cockpit Displays) systems with British parts, to a number of countries, including Morocco and Egypt.
Tel Aviv also requested permits, in 2009, to export to Algeria aerial observation systems, helmets for pilots, radar systems, military communication systems, navigation systems, drone components, and systems that disrupt ballistic equipment, optical target acquisition systems and airborne radars.
In the same year, Israel also asked for permits to sell HUD systems to Morocco, in addition to asking for permits to supply the United Arab Emirates with components for drone, aerial refueling systems, ground and airborne radars, helmets for pilots, parts for fighter jets, thermal imaging and electronic warfare, and systems that disrupt missile launchers.
The British report indicated that, over the past five years, Israel also sold weapons and military gear to a number of countries including Turkey, South Korea, India, Singapore, Japan, Sweden, Canada, Australia, the United States, Portugal, Holland, Italy, New Zealand, Germany, Colombia, Spain, Thailand, Macedonia, Brazil, Chile, Belgium, Vietnam, Switzerland, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Ireland, Thailand, Poland, Equatorial Guyana, Argentina, Finland and Luxembourg.
Furthermore, Haaretz said that Britain denied Israeli applications for the exports of optical target acquisition systems to Russia, aircraft engines to Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and India, in addition to satellite radar to India, and gun mounting systems to Turkmenistan.
According to the report, Tel Aviv leads worldwide in various warfare systems, including Electronic Systems, Cockpit Displays, Drones and Security Exports.
Israel selling military wares to Mideast countries, Britain says
Report by British government agency reveals that Egypt, Algeria, Pakistan, Morocco and UAE were among clients of Israeli defense industries.
Israel has exported security equipment over the past five years to Pakistan and four Arab countries, according to a British government report. The report, which deals with British government permits for arms and security equipment exports, says that in addition to Pakistan, Israel has exported such equipment to Egypt, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.
The report was released by Britain’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which oversees security exports and publishes regular reports on permits granted or denied to purchase arms, military equipment or civilian items that are monitored because they can be put to security uses.
From January 2008 to December 2012, British authorities processed hundreds of Israeli applications to purchase military items containing British components for use by the Israel Defense Forces, or to go into systems exported to third countries.
The British reports also list the countries to which Israel sought to export the items. Among Israel’s clients are Muslim countries with which it does not have diplomatic ties. According to the report, in 2011 Israel sought to purchase British components to export radar systems to Pakistan, as well as electronic warfare systems, Head-up Cockpit Displays (HUD), parts for fighter jets and aircraft engines, optic target acquisition systems, components of training aircraft, and military electronic systems. In 2010, Israel applied for permits to export electronic warfare systems and HUDs with components from Britain to Pakistan. Also in 2010, Israel sought permits to supply Egypt and Morocco with Israeli electronic warfare systems and HUD systems that use British parts.
In 2009, Israel requested permits from British authorities to export to Algeria aerial observation systems, pilots’ helmets and HUDs, radar systems and communications systems for military aircraft, military navigation systems, drone components, systems to disrupt ballistic systems, airborne radar and optical target acquisition systems. Israel also sought to export to Morocco electronic warfare systems and HUDs in 2009.
In that same year, Israel asked for permits to supply components for drones to the United Arab Emirates, as well as pilots’ helmets and aerial refueling systems, ground radar, components for fighter jets, systems to disrupt missile launches, airborne radar systems, and thermal imaging and electronic warfare equipment.
Israel’s other clients for military exports over the past five years, according to the British reports, include India, Singapore, Turkey, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Sweden, Portugal, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Colombia, Holland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Thailand, Macedonia, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Switzerland, Ecuador, Mexico, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Equatorial Guyana, Poland and Argentina.
Britain turned down Israel’s request to obtain military systems intended for export to Russia (optical target acquisition systems), Sri Lanka (aircraft engines), India (aircraft engines and satellite radar), Turkmenistan (gun mountings) and Azerbaijan (aircraft engines).
Israel’s leading security export products, according to the British reports, are drones, electronic warfare systems, radar and cockpit displays.
5 june 2013
More than 1,000 pages of information about the project were made public when the US government published building tenders for the $25 million military installation this week, according to the Australian.
The document disclosed details from the engineering plans and the depth of the underground facility to its cooling and heating systems and building materials to be used.
The missile facility is to be built at Tel Shahar, a base between al-Quds (Jerusalem) and Ashdod whose location has never been officially confirmed.
Arrow 3, which is capable of intercepting missiles at a range of 2,500 kilometers and is being jointly developed by Israel Aerospace Industries and the US aerospace giant Boeing Co., is slated to become operational in 2015-16.
The document disclosed details from the engineering plans and the depth of the underground facility to its cooling and heating systems and building materials to be used.
The missile facility is to be built at Tel Shahar, a base between al-Quds (Jerusalem) and Ashdod whose location has never been officially confirmed.
Arrow 3, which is capable of intercepting missiles at a range of 2,500 kilometers and is being jointly developed by Israel Aerospace Industries and the US aerospace giant Boeing Co., is slated to become operational in 2015-16.
19 may 2013
Israeli regime sells $400mn of drones annually: Report
The Israeli regime exports about $400 million worth of drones per year, an Israeli daily reports.
The Ynet daily website recently reported that more than 49 countries are the customers of the Tel Aviv regime’s aerospace industry.
Israeli industry insiders, according to the report, believe that the drones may replace the regime’s warplanes and pilots within the coming years.
“Eighty percent of the drones manufactured in Israel are exported,” the report stated.
Israel has increased its investment on unmanned aerial vehicles industry since 1982, when the regime used remote-controlled aircraft during its war on Lebanon.
On May 11, the Israeli regime shot down one of its Shoval-type drones over the Mediterranean Sea due to a ‘technical malfunction.’
Tel Aviv said the malfunction was because of loss of communications and control with the ground. However, some media reports said the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah had taken control of the $10-million aircraft before it was shot.
The Tel Aviv regime decided to ground all its Shoval drones to launch an investigation to discover the reason for the malfunction, the report said.
Last year, an Eitan-type drone crashed near Moshav Yesodot in central part of the occupied Palestinian territories as a result of both a human error and a technical malfunction.
The Ynet daily website recently reported that more than 49 countries are the customers of the Tel Aviv regime’s aerospace industry.
Israeli industry insiders, according to the report, believe that the drones may replace the regime’s warplanes and pilots within the coming years.
“Eighty percent of the drones manufactured in Israel are exported,” the report stated.
Israel has increased its investment on unmanned aerial vehicles industry since 1982, when the regime used remote-controlled aircraft during its war on Lebanon.
On May 11, the Israeli regime shot down one of its Shoval-type drones over the Mediterranean Sea due to a ‘technical malfunction.’
Tel Aviv said the malfunction was because of loss of communications and control with the ground. However, some media reports said the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah had taken control of the $10-million aircraft before it was shot.
The Tel Aviv regime decided to ground all its Shoval drones to launch an investigation to discover the reason for the malfunction, the report said.
Last year, an Eitan-type drone crashed near Moshav Yesodot in central part of the occupied Palestinian territories as a result of both a human error and a technical malfunction.
30 apr 2013
Israel's 5th Dolphin submarine launched in north Germany
The INS Rahav submarine is seen at the dry dock at the Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft shipyard in Kiel, Germany. (file photo)
Israel has launched its fifth Dolphin-class submarine, which was constructed to undertake long-range classified missions and carry missiles armed with nuclear warheads, at a shipyard in northern Germany.
The director general of Israel’s Ministry of Military Affairs, Major General Udi Shani, the commander of the Israeli navy, Rear Admiral Ram Rothberg, and a number of other Israeli and German officials attended the inauguration of the submarine at the Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) shipyard in Kiel Port on Monday.
The submarine, named the INS Rahav, will cost $500 million and will arrive in Israel in one year upon the completion and installation of its relevant systems. It is considered one of the most advanced submarines in the world and will be Israel’s most expensive piece of military equipment.
Israel’s first three Dolphin-class submarines are believed to be some of the most sophisticated diesel-electric submarines in the world. The fourth submarine, the INS Tanin, the first of the new generation Dolphin II submarines, was delivered in May 2012.
Germany donated the first two submarines after the first Persian Gulf War and agreed to cover a third of the cost of the third one.
In March 2012, Israel signed a contract for a sixth Dolphin-class submarine, to be delivered in a few years.
Israeli officials consider the submarines to be a critical aspect of the Israeli nuclear deterrent. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the submarines “a strong and strategic tool” for the Israeli navy.
Israel has launched its fifth Dolphin-class submarine, which was constructed to undertake long-range classified missions and carry missiles armed with nuclear warheads, at a shipyard in northern Germany.
The director general of Israel’s Ministry of Military Affairs, Major General Udi Shani, the commander of the Israeli navy, Rear Admiral Ram Rothberg, and a number of other Israeli and German officials attended the inauguration of the submarine at the Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) shipyard in Kiel Port on Monday.
The submarine, named the INS Rahav, will cost $500 million and will arrive in Israel in one year upon the completion and installation of its relevant systems. It is considered one of the most advanced submarines in the world and will be Israel’s most expensive piece of military equipment.
Israel’s first three Dolphin-class submarines are believed to be some of the most sophisticated diesel-electric submarines in the world. The fourth submarine, the INS Tanin, the first of the new generation Dolphin II submarines, was delivered in May 2012.
Germany donated the first two submarines after the first Persian Gulf War and agreed to cover a third of the cost of the third one.
In March 2012, Israel signed a contract for a sixth Dolphin-class submarine, to be delivered in a few years.
Israeli officials consider the submarines to be a critical aspect of the Israeli nuclear deterrent. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the submarines “a strong and strategic tool” for the Israeli navy.
21 apr 2013
Hagel: US-Israel arms deal sends 'clear signal' to Iran
A major US arms deal with Israel sends a "very clear signal" to Tehran that military action remains an option to stop it from going nuclear, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters Sunday.
Asked if a multi-billion dollar arms package with Israel was designed to convey a message that a military strike remains an option, he said: "I don't think there's any question that's another very clear signal to Iran."
Hagel was speaking just before his plane touched down in Tel Aviv at the start of a six-day tour of the region focused on plans to sell $10 billion worth of advanced missiles and aircraft to Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in a bid to counter the threat posed by Iran.
The deal will see Israel obtaining anti-radiation missiles designed to take out enemy air defenses, radar for fighter jets, aerial refueling tankers and Osprey V-22 tilt-rotor transport aircraft.
It will also see the sale of US F-16 fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates and sophisticated missiles to Saudi Arabia.
Details were unveiled on the eve of Hagel's departure on a trip which will focus heavily on tensions over Iran's nuclear program and the civil war raging in Syria.
American and Israeli leaders have been at odds over Iran, with President Barack Obama's administration arguing that tough sanctions and diplomacy need to be given more time to work.
But Israel, believed to be the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, has repeatedly warned that time is running out and has refused to rule out a pre-emptive military strike to prevent Iran from obtaining an atomic weapons capability.
Hagel plans to discuss with his counterparts in the region the final details of the arms deal, and US officials have said it would be months or more for the new weapons and aircraft to be delivered.
Asked if a multi-billion dollar arms package with Israel was designed to convey a message that a military strike remains an option, he said: "I don't think there's any question that's another very clear signal to Iran."
Hagel was speaking just before his plane touched down in Tel Aviv at the start of a six-day tour of the region focused on plans to sell $10 billion worth of advanced missiles and aircraft to Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in a bid to counter the threat posed by Iran.
The deal will see Israel obtaining anti-radiation missiles designed to take out enemy air defenses, radar for fighter jets, aerial refueling tankers and Osprey V-22 tilt-rotor transport aircraft.
It will also see the sale of US F-16 fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates and sophisticated missiles to Saudi Arabia.
Details were unveiled on the eve of Hagel's departure on a trip which will focus heavily on tensions over Iran's nuclear program and the civil war raging in Syria.
American and Israeli leaders have been at odds over Iran, with President Barack Obama's administration arguing that tough sanctions and diplomacy need to be given more time to work.
But Israel, believed to be the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, has repeatedly warned that time is running out and has refused to rule out a pre-emptive military strike to prevent Iran from obtaining an atomic weapons capability.
Hagel plans to discuss with his counterparts in the region the final details of the arms deal, and US officials have said it would be months or more for the new weapons and aircraft to be delivered.
17 apr 2013
US to Give Additional $220 Million for Israel's Iron Dome
The United States plans to finance the Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile by the amount of $220 million for the fiscal year 2014, despite the US's budget cuts.
According Missile Defense Agency (MDA), the Pentagon plans to spend $220.3 million on the Iron Dome.
The Pentagon, which had already spent $204 million in 2011 and $70 million in 2012, also foresees a budget of 176 million for the Iron Dome system in 2015.
US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel promised on March 5 to former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that Washington would continue to fund Israeli missile defense systems, including Iron Dome, despite the United States' budget constraints.
Hagel said Tuesday he would be traveling to Israel in a few days, his first trip to the Mideast ally since he took over at the Pentagon.
US military aid to Israel amounts to three billion dollars a year, to ensure Israel a "qualitative military edge" over other countries in the region, as US law provides.
Each Iron Dome battery has radar detection and tracking, control software and three launchers, each equipped with 20 interceptor missiles.
According Missile Defense Agency (MDA), the Pentagon plans to spend $220.3 million on the Iron Dome.
The Pentagon, which had already spent $204 million in 2011 and $70 million in 2012, also foresees a budget of 176 million for the Iron Dome system in 2015.
US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel promised on March 5 to former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that Washington would continue to fund Israeli missile defense systems, including Iron Dome, despite the United States' budget constraints.
Hagel said Tuesday he would be traveling to Israel in a few days, his first trip to the Mideast ally since he took over at the Pentagon.
US military aid to Israel amounts to three billion dollars a year, to ensure Israel a "qualitative military edge" over other countries in the region, as US law provides.
Each Iron Dome battery has radar detection and tracking, control software and three launchers, each equipped with 20 interceptor missiles.
14 apr 2013
Germany 'may buy weaponized drones from Israel'
Germany is in talks with Israel to buy weaponized drones for its military that are seen as more technologically advanced than US ones, the weekly Der Spiegel reported.
The news magazine's Monday edition said the German defense ministry had already held two meetings with Israeli military officials, in November 2012 and February 2013, on the proposed purchase.
The chief of Germany's air force, Lieutenant General Karl Muellner, was said to have recently gone to Israel to attend a presentation of Israel's Heron TP drone, Der Spiegel said.
Berlin was believed to favor the Heron over the US-made Predator drones because it was seen as more cutting-edge, the magazine said.
Germany's defense minister, Thomas de Maiziere, in February called for combat drones to be incorporated into the air force, saying their lack created a disadvantage.
At the time, he made no mention about which drones Germany would be interested in.
But Germany had expressed an interest in jointly developing drone technology with France, to avoid becoming dependent on US or Israeli drones.
The issue of drones has generated an ethical debate in Germany, which does not use unmanned aircraft to fight battles but only for surveillance and reconnaissance missions in places such as Afghanistan.
The news magazine's Monday edition said the German defense ministry had already held two meetings with Israeli military officials, in November 2012 and February 2013, on the proposed purchase.
The chief of Germany's air force, Lieutenant General Karl Muellner, was said to have recently gone to Israel to attend a presentation of Israel's Heron TP drone, Der Spiegel said.
Berlin was believed to favor the Heron over the US-made Predator drones because it was seen as more cutting-edge, the magazine said.
Germany's defense minister, Thomas de Maiziere, in February called for combat drones to be incorporated into the air force, saying their lack created a disadvantage.
At the time, he made no mention about which drones Germany would be interested in.
But Germany had expressed an interest in jointly developing drone technology with France, to avoid becoming dependent on US or Israeli drones.
The issue of drones has generated an ethical debate in Germany, which does not use unmanned aircraft to fight battles but only for surveillance and reconnaissance missions in places such as Afghanistan.
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