Source: The Jordan Times
Technology of death: The not-so-shocking report on Israeli weapons exports
By Ramzy Baroud | March 24, 2020
The Middle East region, battered by wars and adjoining humanitarian crises that have left millions of people stateless, hungry and diseased, is in urgent need for peace, security and reconstruction. Thanks to the US, Russian, French, Israeli and other weapons manufacturers, however, it is now the dumping ground for military hardware, an ominous sign for the years ahead.
Data released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on March 9, paints a grim picture of the world, in general, and the Middle East, in particular. According to the report, the demand for weapons in the warring region has increased by a whopping 61 per cent between 2015 and 2019.
The correlation between arms, war and casualty count needs no elaborate algorithm to be deciphered, as facts on the ground amply demonstrate. Syria remains the epicenter of conflict in the Middle East, with Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Palestine and South Sudan trailing, but not far behind.
The top five merchants of death, according to SIPRI, are the United States, Russia, France, Germany and China. Interestingly, while US arms exports have increased exponentially by 76 per cent in the last five years, Russia’s arms exports fell by 18 per cent.
The US market is in constant expansion as it now includes 96 client countries, while Russia has, essentially, lost one of its most significant clients, India.
Ruled by a right-wing Hindu nationalist government, Delhi has found in Tel Aviv a more ideologically like-minded supplier. The special 'friendship' between India's Narendra Modi and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu has made India Israel's largest weapons market.
In 2017, Israel’s arms exports reached a record high of $9 billion dollars, following the signing of a $2 billion deal with India. The contracts awarded to the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) were considered the "single largest deal ever signed by the Israeli arms industry."
With India becoming the largest importer of Israeli arms in the world, Israel is now a secondary party in the protracted conflict between India and Pakistan. The two nuclear-armed countries edged closer to the abyss of a full-blown war in March 2019. Naturally, Israeli weapons, now featured prominently in India's military arsenal, will play a major role in sustaining any future conflict.
According to the newly-released data, Israel is only second to South Korea in terms of the vast expansion of weapons exports, as Israel's weapons manufacturing industry has experienced an unprecedented boom in recent years. SIPRI puts that increase at 77 per cent.
Last year, the International Defence Cooperation Directorate of the Israeli Ministry of Defence (SIBAT), which is the cornerstone of Israel's weapon manufacturing, testing and export, released a comprehensive plan aimed at the expansion of Israel's global weapons market, with due focus on the US, Finland and India.
What makes Israeli weapons more attractive than others is the fact that they are not accompanied by any political price tag. In other words, Israel is willing to sell weapons to any country, or even non-state actors, openly or secretly, regardless of how these weapons are used and whether their use violates human rights or not.
In May 2019, Amnesty International's Israeli chapter released an in-depth report that examined Israel’s weapons export markets. Contrary to the claim by Rachel Chen, head of the Israeli Defence Export Controls Agency, that "we will carefully examine the state of human rights in each country before approving export licenses for selling them weapons," Israel is known for peddling its weapons to the world's most notorious human rights violators. The list includes Myanmar, Philippines, South Sudan and Sri Lanka.
Please go to The Jordan Times to read the entire article.
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