Israeli defence companies pitched weapons systems to dozens of European and Asian countries by highlighting their role in Israel’s onslaught against Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel’s Defense Tech Week took place on Monday and Tuesday. It was sponsored in part by the country’s defence ministry along with Tel Aviv University.
According to The Wall Street Journal, at least one video was shown at the event of two Israeli attack drones flying into a building in Gaza before plumes of smoke emerged.
Israel’s war on Gaza started after the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel that killed around 1,200 people. Israel launched a ferocious response that has killed over 70,100 Palestinians, in what scores of human rights experts, world leaders, historians, and the United Nations have called a genocide. People continue to die every day due to Israeli ceasefire violations.
Yet Israel’s defence event drew over 2,000 participants, including those from abroad.
Representatives of Asian countries, including Uzbekistan, Singapore and India, attended, according to the WSJ, but also several European countries that have tried to show they are distancing themselves from Israel.
Their participation in the Israeli event showed how skin-deep that censure was.
For example, Israeli officials were banned by the UK government from attending the country’s leading arms fair in London. The government said in a statement that Israeli officials would not be allowed to attend due to the country’s continuing assault on Gaza. Dozens of Israeli arms companies with ties to the government were still allowed to participate.
This week, British embassy officials toured the event, looking at Israeli weapons systems and military technology being marketed, in part, based on their role in Israel’s assaults on Gaza and Lebanon.
The British embassy in Israel confirmed to the WSJ that its officials attended the event.
Another example is Norway, whose officials attended the arms fair.
In August, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, said it had divested from American construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc, and five Israeli banks over human rights violations in Gaza.
The $1.9 trillion fund’s executive board said it had decided to divest from all six entities following advice by its ethics council, which said they all “contribute to serious violations of the rights of individuals in situations of war and conflict”.
However, Norwegian officials also attended the event, according to the WSJ. The sovereign wealth fund is owned by the government but managed independently of political decisions.
Plummeting global popularity, soaring arms exports
Israel has seen its popularity plummet since its war on Gaza. A poll released by Pew in June showed that from Italy to Japan, most people in the world now hold negative views of Israel.
That shift has also occurred in the US, where it is especially stark among young people who identify on both the left and right of American politics.
A Pew poll in April found that young Republicans, those under the age of 50, are now more likely to have an unfavourable view of Israel, with 50 percent polling in that direction. Support for Israel among Democratic voters was already lower before 7 October 2023.
Still, governments worldwide have shown a strong appetite for Israeli military hardware.
Israeli arms exports hit an all-time high of $14.7bn in 2024, according to the Israeli defence ministry, including a sharp rise in deals with Arab states.
Around 57 percent of the agreements signed in 2024 were “mega-deals” valued at at least $100m each, the ministry said in a statement released in June, adding that “operational achievements” in the war on Gaza drove demand.
Sales to Arab countries which signed normalisation deals with Israel, dubbed the Abraham Accords, rose from three percent in 2023 to 12 percent last year. But Europe was the big buyer, making up 54 percent of exports last year.
This week, Israel symbolically handed over its Arrow 3 long-range missile defence system to the German Air Force during a ceremony at an air base south of Berlin. Berlin’s 4bn euro ($4.6bn) purchase of the missile interceptor was the largest defence export deal in Israel’s history. The sale was originally signed in September 2023.
Many countries in Eastern and Central Europe are moving to re-arm, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Romania in July said it would purchase a $2bn air-defence system from Israel’s Rafael.
Closer to the region, Greece has been buying millions of dollars’ worth of Israeli military gear. Despite its historic closeness to the Palestinians, Greece and Israel have moved into a partnership in recent years, spurred on by their shared concern over Turkey.
The Greek parliament late on Thursday approved the $757.84m purchase of 36 PULS rocket artillery systems from Israel, Reuters reported.
Source: MEE
