{"id":56052,"date":"2015-03-30T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2015-03-30T11:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=56052"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:25:54","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:25:54","slug":"sixty-percent-of-global-drone-exports-come-from-israel-new-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/03\/sixty-percent-of-global-drone-exports-come-from-israel-new-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Sixty Percent of Global Drone Exports Come from Israel \u2014 New Data"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Drones<\/a>

Drones developed by the Israeli firm Elbit have been tested in attacks on Gaza\u2019s children. (Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n

24 Mar 2015 – <\/em>Israel has supplied 60.7 percent<\/a> of the world\u2019s drones\u00a0since 1985, according to\u00a0new data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.<\/p>\n

As a result, Israel is the single greatest source of drone proliferation in the world.<\/p>\n

In second place is the United States, which accounts for 23.9 percent of global drone exports, followed by Canada at 6.4 percent, France at 1.6 percent, Austria at 1.4 percent, Italy at 1.1 percent, Germany at 1 percent and China at 0.9 percent.<\/p>\n

Conversely, the United Kingdom is the world\u2019s number one importer of drones. Between 2010 and 2014, the UK bought\u00a055 drones from Israel and six armed drones from the US, which accounted for one third of global drone deliveries in that time period.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of the drone market is comprised of surveillance drones.<\/p>\n

The US, UK\u00a0and Israel are the only countries\u00a0in the world<\/a> known to have used armed drones, deployed exclusively against nonwhite predominantly Muslim populations\u00a0in nations and territories that have been pillaged and destroyed by Western conquest.<\/p>\n

The besieged Gaza Strip has served as the leading\u00a0testing ground for both armed and surveillance drones.<\/p>\n

Tested on Palestinians<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the last decade, Israel\u2019s use of robotic warfare against Palestinians has escalated dramatically, with each new military assault on\u00a0Gaza\u00a0relying more heavily on drones than the last.<\/p>\n

Last summer, Israel\u2019s 51-day\u00a0bombing campaign against Gaza\u00a0killed more than\u00a02,200 Palestinians, the\u00a0majority of them civilians, including more than\u00a0500 children.<\/p>\n

Based on data collected by the Al Mezan Center for Human rights<\/a>, a\u00a0Corporate Watch<\/a> investigation\u00a0found that at least 37 percent<\/a>\u00a0of those killed, or 840 people,\u00a0died in drone strikes alone.<\/p>\n

\"Corporate<\/a>

Corporate Watch chart of drone deaths in Gaza by year.<\/p><\/div>\n

Lost in the numbers is the\u00a0psychological terror<\/a> inflicted on the people of the Gaza ghetto, especially children, by the constant presence of drones buzzing overhead\u00a0with the capacity to rain death on those below at any moment.<\/p>\n

This has been wildly lucrative for Israeli arms companies, which exploit Israel\u2019s frequent military assaults as opportunities to expedite the testing<\/a> of their products on human subjects.<\/p>\n

Easy access to a captive Palestinian population to experiment<\/a> on\u00a0allows Israeli arms producers to market their products as \u201ccombat proven,\u201d a coveted seal of approval that gives Israel a competitive edge in the international arms trade. Israel\u2019s repression technology is then exported<\/a> to regimes\u00a0that are similarly invested in subjugating the poor and marginalized.<\/p>\n

This dystopian arrangement has paved the way for Israel, a country the size of New Jersey, to rank among the globe\u2019s top arms exporters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A case in point is Elbit Systems<\/a>, Israel\u2019s largest military technology firm, which produces 85 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the drones that make up the Israeli army\u2019s vast\u00a0arsenal.<\/p>\n

The Hermes 900, a drone manufactured by Elbit, was deployed operationally for the first time<\/a>\u00a0against Palestinians in Gaza last summer, even though it was still undergoing testing<\/a>.\u00a0Nicknamed the Kochav<\/em> \u2014\u00a0which is Hebrew for \u201cstar\u201d \u2014\u00a0the Hermes 900\u2019s blood-soaked performance garnered widespread praise at Israel\u2019s annual drone conference<\/a>, held less than a month after the Gaza slaughter.<\/p>\n

The Hermes 900 is a more advanced version of the Hermes 450, an aerial attack and surveillance drone that was used by the Israeli army to deliberately target civilians in Gaza during Israel\u2019s previous\u00a0onslaught in late 2008 and early 2009, according to Human Rights Watch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Hermes drone was also used to kill civilians in Israel\u2019s attack\u00a0on Lebanon in 2006<\/a>, including Red Cross workers, ambulance drivers and dozens of people fleeing their homes in a desperate search for safety from Israeli bombardment.<\/p>\n

Marketed in the\u00a0company brochure<\/a> as \u201ccombat-proven\u201d and \u201cFighting terror for over a decade,\u201d\u00a0the Hermes 450 boasts \u201ca class-leading safety and reliability record.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apparently impressed by the aircraft\u2019s capacity for bloodshed, the Brazilian government purchased a fleet of Hermes drones to help crush<\/a> the massive protests that erupted across Brazil against the 2014\u00a0World Cup.<\/p>\n

Thales UK \u2014\u00a0a subsidiary of the French company, Thales<\/a>, which is ranked as the eleventh largest arms producer<\/a> in the world \u2014\u00a0signed a $1.6 billion<\/a> joint venture with Elbit Systems in 2011 to develop a new drone fleet\u00a0called Watchkeeper for the British military.<\/p>\n

The Watchkeeper is being modeled on\u00a0the Hermes 450, which has been deployed by the British army in Afghanistan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elbit might be Israel\u2019s largest drone producer, but it\u2019s hardly the only Israeli company selling\u00a0equipment tested on Palestinians to regimes around the world.<\/p>\n

According to an investigation by Drones UK, Israel has exported drone technology to at least fifty\u00a0different countries<\/a>, enabling atrocities and fueling war.<\/p>\n

With America\u2019s blessing, Israel sold drones and fighter jets to Sri Lanka<\/a>, which were used to commit atrocities against Sri Lanka\u2019s ethnic Tamil minority.<\/p>\n

South Korea recently\u00a0purchased<\/a>\u00a0the Heron drone, which is produced by\u00a0Israel Aerospace Industries<\/a>\u00a0and has been\u00a0deployed for surveillance and target acquisition in Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza.<\/p>\n

In addition to helping crush World Cup protests, Israeli drones have been used by Brazilian police to invade the nation\u2019s favelas<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

In certain instances, Israel has sold drones to both sides in a given conflict. Both\u00a0Russia and Georgia<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 between whom a conflict took place in 2008 \u2014\u00a0were armed with Israeli drones.\u00a0Turkey<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the\u00a0Kurdistan Workers Party<\/a>\u00a0(PKK)\u00a0have reportedly both\u00a0used Israeli drones.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Israel\u2019s drone exports to India have provoked a drone \u201carms race\u201d with neighboring Pakistan, according to the organization Drones UK.<\/p>\n

Israel invented drones<\/strong><\/p>\n

Israel was instrumental<\/a> in pioneering the modern drone due largely to the ideology at its core.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s creation as a majority Jewish state was precipitated by the pre-meditated ethnic cleansing of 750,000 indigenous Palestinians by Zionist militias in 1948 \u2014 which Palestinians refer to as the Nakba<\/a>, or catastrophe. Israel has spent every\u00a0day since then consolidating and expanding its Jewish majority in historic Palestine, which has required tremendous levels of violence, including the ongoing\u00a0containment and exclusion of the native Palestinian inhabitants still under its control.<\/p>\n

The Israeli economy has been built around advancing this goal, giving rise to a booming \u201chomeland security\u201d industry that caters to the designs of Zionism and then repackages occupation-style repression for export and profit.<\/p>\n

Drone technology has been crucial to this endeavor.<\/p>\n

After suffering heavy losses in its 1973 war with Egypt, the Israeli regime, for the first time in its existence, was met with backlash<\/a> from an Israeli Jewish public unaccustomed to high soldier casualties.<\/p>\n

It was in the aftermath of the 1973 war that the Israeli government began investing<\/a> heavily in drone technology,\u00a0minimizing\u00a0the risk to its soldiers, effectively pacifying future opposition to endless war, expansion and conquest.<\/p>\n

Israel Aerospace Industries, known as Israel Aircraft Industries at the time, and the Israeli company\u00a0Tadiran were tasked with designing drones for real-time intelligence collection in the occupied Sinai<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Soon enough, IAI invented the Scout drone, which was deployed in 1982<\/a> to coordinate targeting\u00a0during Israel\u2019s deadly invasion of Lebanon. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Israel tested and refined a variety of drones on the people of southern Lebanon in an attempt to crush armed resistance to its occupation. With each operation came\u00a0another wave of advancements in drone technology.<\/p>\n

With the start of the\u00a0second intifada<\/a> and Israel\u2019s forced withdraw from southern Lebanon in 2000, the occupied West Bank and Gaza\u00a0became Israel\u2019s primary testing grounds for drone warfare.<\/p>\n

Israeli drones provided\u00a0hidden attack helicopters with coordinates to fire on<\/a> during Israel\u2019s ruthless 2002 attack on the Jenin refugee camp in the\u00a0West Bank. As early as 2004<\/a>, Israeli drones were raining down missiles on the Gaza Strip in\u00a0targeted assassinations of\u00a0Palestinians fighters.<\/p>\n

Though the US started utilizing and investing in drone technology before Israel, Israel was always one step ahead.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no coincidence that Abraham Karem<\/a>, an Israeli citizen, designed the Predator drone, which has been\u00a0deployed by the\u00a0US military and the CIA to carry out targeted assassinations that have left\u00a0hundreds of innocent people\u00a0dead<\/a>. The\u00a0Iraqi-born Karem received a degree in aeronautical engineering at the Haifa-based Israel Institute of Technology \u2014 better known as the Technion \u2014\u00a0\u00a0and got his start at IAI before\u00a0immigrating\u00a0to the US after he was blackballed by the Israeli government for starting his own drone company.<\/p>\n

Today, Gaza is surrounded with Israeli drones by air, land and sea.<\/p>\n

In addition to the surveillance drones that hover overhead, the walls of the Gaza cage will soon be reinforced by Border Patroller<\/a>, an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), or land drone, armed with remote-controlled weapons. Designed by the Israeli company G-NIUS, a joint venture between Elbit Systems and IAI, the Border Patroller, like the walls it fortifies, will prevent the Palestinian refugees of Gaza from escaping their cage.<\/p>\n

The Protector<\/a>, produced by Israel\u2019s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, is an unmanned sea vehicle (USV), or boat drone, that roams Gaza\u2019s coast to obstruct Palestinian fishermen from making a living.<\/p>\n

If the proliferation of Israel\u2019s aerial drones is any indication, it won\u2019t be long before land and sea drones spread to all corners of the globe.<\/p>\n

As long as Israel\u2019s economy is shaped by the\u00a0subjugation\u00a0and elimination of Palestinians, it will continue to function as a factory for cutting-edge repression technology that sustains racism and inequality around the globe.<\/p>\n

__________________________________<\/p>\n

Rania Khalek is an independent journalist reporting on the underclass and marginalized. For more of her work check out her website Dispatches from the Underclass<\/a> and follow her on Twitter @RaniaKhalek<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 electronicintifada.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israel has supplied 60.7 percent of the world\u2019s drones since 1985, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. In second place is the US with 23.9 percent. The besieged Gaza Strip has served as the leading testing ground for both armed and surveillance drones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-militarism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56052\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}