This blog is intended as a place to post my research into the arms industry, where it can be stored and hopefully shared. It’s also a place where I’ll clarify my ideas.
By clicking on one of the categories to the right, you can access all the articles I’ve written on a particular topic.
You are encouraged to contribute, and add your knowledge and wisdom to this record. Feel free to be critical, I don’t mind.
In an article 3 November, 2009, the UK announced that it may develop armed drone technology, quite possibly on its Watchkeeper drones, which are based on the Israeli Hermes 450 drone (battle tested in Palestine). The UK has spent £800 million to buy this technology from an Israeli company and its partners.
Click on ‘Watchkeeper’ on list to the right for more info.
more to follow…
Talking to someone who protested the DESI arms trading show in Docklands, East London this summer, I was made aware that one or more of the companies at DESI were demonstrating drones above the streets of east London. I wasn’t able to find a published record of this, but I did come across an article about the proposed use of drones to survey crowds at the 2012 Olympics in London.
In future all public gatherings of note may be monitored by spy-in-the-sky robotic drones, which can say in the sky for hours and return high resolution photos for future viewing of security officers. With protesters now being rebranded as 
‘domestic extremists’ by the police, this is a worrying trend. No more will the intimidating thud of police helicopters be heard overhead; now observations will be made quietly and almost unseen.
After decades of military subsidies and arms imports from the US, Israel’s military has a high degree of interoperability with the US and NATO. As a burgeoning arms manufacturer and arms trader Israel this linkage is increasing. For example, because Israel has a state of the art drone industry, battle tested repressing Palestinians in the West Bank, Israeli drones are becoming a staple of many NATO armouries including the UK, Canada, and Australia.
While it is understandable that NATO member countries might want to guarantee Israel’s security, there is no consequent pressure on Israel to address its repression of Palestinians. Indeed, the military integration of Israel and its arms industry into western ‘defences’ provides crucial support for the militarists in the Israeli government, and undermines completely any intended diplomatic efforts in other areas.
Some questions:
How integrated are Israeli and NATO militaries?
What agreements provide for Israeli/NATO cooperation and interoperability?
How often are Israeli trainers used in NATO, and vice versa?
Do Israeli companies use experiences repressing Palestinians to sell arms?
The Watchkeeper drones now being tested in Wales are the product of UK/Israeli cooperation on the military front. Money from the sale of drone technology supports the Israeli state, but moreover it pays for more research and development into new weapons that will be used to repress Palestinians and confront Israel’s enemies. Israel is becoming more dependent on arms sales and has a record of sales to unstable regimes and potential war zones.
£800 million of British taxpayers money is going into this programme, which directly supports the military establishment in Israel. There is a revolving door between the Israeli government, Israeli Defence Forces and the Israeli arms industry. Adding significant amounts of cash to this system simply supports this triumvirate, and submerses more peaceful tendencies in Israeli society.
With a powerful military machine, integrated with NATO, Israel has the power to impose harsh conditions on Palestinians in the occupied territories. The position of the UK’s Labour government is intensely hypocritical. Calls for Israel to respect Palestinian rights, and threats to stop UK arms exports to Israel, are greatly overshadowed by the £800 million spent on Israeli drone techology.
UK Watchkeeper drones have taken their first flights in Israel in August 2009. They will be tested in Wales towards the end of 2009. The Watchkeeper project will provide the UK with its own drone system, created from technology purchased from an consortium of Israel’s Elbit Systems, and Thales of France. The Watchkeeper is based on the Hermes 450, an Israeli drone believed to have seen wide service in the surveillance of the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza.
The Watchkeeper project is an 800 million pound sterling effort to provide the UK with an independent drone capacity. It purchased the Hermes technology because it already flys Hermes drones purchased from Israel, and (presumably) because Israel’s armed systems come with a record of performance in the occupation, surveillance and control of the occupied territories.
A nice graphic depiction of how Watchkeeper drones will fit into the other components of the UK war machine is shown here. Some general information.
In 2005 the BBC reported that in 1958 the UK provided Israel with one of the critical ingredients needed to build a bomb. Citing recently declassified documents, the BBC said that 20 tons of heavy water were sold to Israel, without the knowledge of the US. This was almost certainly a critical factor in Israel being able to build nuclear weapons.
Israel is now the world’s fourth largest arms trader, and has one of the world’s largest and most effective military. Britain has a long history of supporting the Israeli military, most recently by making an 800 million pound sterling purchase of Israel drone technology, under the Watchkeeper system.
Canada has developed a close security arrangement with Israel, developing the Canada Israel Security Agreement, under the shepherding of Public Security Minister Stockwell Day. This agreement was completed and signed during a visit to Israel and the occupied territories by Day in 2007.
It is curious that this agreement was necessary, because it doesn’t seem to have been necessary to have such a broad reaching agreement before that. The agreement is said by Michel Chossudovsky to be modelled on the agreement negotiated between US Homeland Security and the Israeli government. Indeed, Chossudovsky noted that the agreement was signed in Israel at the same time that VP Cheney and other US public security officials were in Israel, leaving the likelihood that the Canadian delegation simply followed the American model.
It appears that the agreement is simply part of a broad policy of Conservative government to provide even more support for the Israeli government, and falling in line with US policy, even while claiming to favour peace and the end of settlements. How can Canada claim to pressure Israel to stop the settlement building process and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland while meanwhile increasing support and cooperation with one of the institutions used by Israel to repress Palesinians?
Why does Canada need a public security agreement with Israel, a country with which it share no common borders? Does Canada have similar agreements with other small countries?
What other agreements are there?
For example, the Canada Israel Free Trade Agreement. Note: Does the Canada Israel Free Trade Agreement allow Israel to sell to Canada goods manufactured in the West Bank in settler communities?
Is this part of a broader Canadian policy to support Israel, for example by buying Israeli military hardware?
Project Noctua is the program by which the Canadian DND leases drones from contractors, specifically leasing Israel Aeronautic Industries Heron drones from IAI’s Canadian partner, MacDonald Dettwiler. REF
In 2008, Peter Mackay, Minister of National Defense, ‘quietly awarded’ the contract for drones for use in Afghanistan to the IAI Macdonald Dettwiler consortium, after the contractors for the US Predator drone bowed out of the bidding because the size of the contract wasn’t worth their trouble. REF
Recently Australia has received a Heron drone and training in operating Heron drones from Canada. This is a bit perplexing, since one wonders why Australia doesn’t get its drones straight from Israel.
The drones are presumably acquired through the partnership between Israel Aerospace Industries and MacDonald Dettwiler of Canada, which has an operation at Suffield Alberta, where it tests UAVs and trains operators for the drones that Canada has acquired from Israel.
Australia appears to have plans to acquire more drones, and the fact that they are already using a Heron drone suggests that future drones may also be acquired from Israel, providing support for the Israeli arms industry.
Australian drone operators are being absorbed into the Canadian Heron UAV detachment at Kandahar Afghanistan.
More information here.
