#global arms sales

[workersolidarity]

Photo source

Just for a bit of perspective:

🇺🇲💵 US Weapons Exports in 2022 totalled $205.6 Billion, up 49% over the same one-year period from 2021.

This makes Weapons Exports the third largest export category for the United States when commercial and government arms sales are tallied; with the largest export category being Mineral Fuels, Oils, and distillation products and the second largest export category being Machinery, Nuclear Reactors and Boilers.

These were the top five largest US Exports by category:

Mineral Fuels, Oils, Distillation products- $378.56 Billion

Machinery, Nuclear Reactors, Boilers- $229.59 Billion

Weapons Exports- $205.6 Billion

Electrical, Electronic Equipment- $197.75 Billion

Vehicles, other than railway/tramway- $134.89 Billion

US Government Arms exports alone were valued at $51.9 Billion in 2022, accounting for 40% of global government arms sales.

By comparison, Russian arms exports for 2022 are estimated at the equivalent of $10.8 Billion, while Chinese arms exports accounted for roughly 5% of global arms sales or roughly $6.5 Billion. Though admittedly, using US dollars as a comparison point can be limited in its ability to accurately represent the actual number and quality of weapons being sold.

#source

#source2

**The US no longer produces and exports the goods and services you would expect of a nation of its size, population and GDP. The US, which as recently as the 1970's led the world in global production, now only produces and exports overpriced weapons of war and a cultural hegemony that eats insidiously away at the bonds that hold communities together; for a divided nation is easier to conquer and a divided people are easier to rule.

[sayruq]

Statement: Student organizations in the Gaza Strip in solidarity with the Student Intifada in the United States

In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful… We, the students of Gaza, salute the students of Columbia University, Yale University, New York University, Rutgers University, the University of Michigan, and dozens of universities across the United States who are rising up in solidarity with Gaza and to put an end to the Zionist-U.S. genocide against our people in Gaza. As we remain under the bombs of occupation, resisting Nazi genocide, grieving for our martyred colleagues and faculty, and witnessing the destruction of our universities, we welcome the examples of solidarity offered by students facing arrest, police violence, suspension, eviction, and expulsion in order to demand that their universities end their complicity in the Zionist-U.S. genocide and renounce their support for the occupation and the war profiteers that arm it. We have seen hundreds of students arrested across the United States as they work to transform their universities into “Popular Universities for Gaza.” Students, faculty, and staff are disrupting university operations and making clear that while universities in Gaza are being bombed, university business cannot continue as usual in the United States. These actions come as university administrations collaborate with members of Congress to discredit conscientious student activists and faculty, expel students, ban events, shut down student organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine, and condemn activists working to end the Nazi genocide. At the same time, these same universities invest in the same companies that profit from the continued sale of weapons to the Zionist regime to continue its genocidal offensive. Our students – and our educational system as a whole – in occupied Palestine are subjected to ongoing genocidal aggression: our universities destroyed and bombed, our student organizations banned, and our student leaders subjected to torture, assassination and mass imprisonment. However, in Palestine and around the world, the student movement has always been a driving force of our struggle for liberation. When we see videos and images from American universities today, we are reminded of our history of student struggle as well as the student uprisings of 1968, which challenged imperialism from Vietnam to Palestine and reshaped the face of Europe and the United States. Now, in 2024, the student movement is once again leading the way. From here in Gaza, we see you and salute you. Your actions and activism matter, especially in the heart of the empire, in the United States. As members of Congress agree to provide $26 billion in additional weapons to bomb our people and continue the Zionist-U.S. genocide, you are taking meaningful action to shut down the war machine on your campuses. It is clear that a new generation is rising that will no longer accept Zionism, racism and genocide, and that stands with Palestine and our liberation from the river to the sea. Your global student solidarity is breaking boundaries, and it is time to smash the US imperialist war machine. From Gaza to Columbia, to Ann Arbor and Berkeley, our hands are joined to end Nazi genocide and achieve our collective liberation.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Palestinian trade unions issue an urgent global call to action, calling on workers everywhere to halt the sale and funding of arms to Israel — and related military research. As Israel escalates its military campaign, Palestinian trade unions call on our counterparts internationally and all people of conscience to end all forms of complicity with Israel’s crimes - most urgently halting the arms trade with Israel, as well as all funding and military research. The time for action is now - Palestinian lives hang in the balance.  This urgent, genocidal situation can only be prevented by a mass increase of global solidarity with the people of Palestine and that can restrain the Israeli war machine. We need you to take immediate action - wherever you are in the world - to prevent the arming of the Israeli state and the companies involved in the infrastructure of the blockade. We take inspiration from previous mobilisations by trade unions in Italy, South Africa and the United States, and similar international mobilisations against the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s, the fascist dictatorship in Chile in the 1970s and elsewhere where global solidarity limited the extent of colonial brutality.  We are calling on trade unions in relevant industries: 1. To refuse to build weapons destined for Israel. 2. To refuse to transport weapons to Israel. 3. To pass motions in their trade union to this effect. 4. To take action against complicit companies involved in implementing Israel’s brutal and illegal siege, especially if they have contracts with your institution.  5. Pressure governments to stop all military trade with Israel, and in the case of the US, funding to it. We make this call as we see attempts to ban and silence all forms of solidarity with the Palestinian people. We ask you to speak out and take action in the face of injustice as trade unions have done historically. We make this call in the belief that the struggle for Palestinian justice and liberation is not only a regionally and globally determined struggle. It is a lever for the liberation of all dispossessed and exploited people of the world.

[mariacallous]

On Boxing Day pro-Palestine demonstrators met customers at the Zara sale in the Westfield shopping centre, in Stratford, east London. They were not there to wish them the compliments of the season.

‘Bombs are dropping while you’re shopping,’ they chanted, as police stood by to make sure the protests did not turn violent. ‘Zara is enabling genocide,’ their placards read.

Quite what they wanted bargain hunters to do about the Israeli forces bombing the Gaza Strip, they never said. Lobby their MPs? Politicians are on their Christmas holidays. Join the Palestinian armed struggle?  It was unclear whether the shopping centre had a Hamas recruitment office.

But on one point the demonstrators were certain: no one should be buying from Zara. Even though the fashion chain has not encouraged Israel’s war against Hamas, earned income from it, or supported Israel in any material way, it was nevertheless “exploiting a genocide and commodifying Palestine's pain for profit”.

Zara, in short, has become the object of a paranoid fantasy: a QAnon conspiracy theory for the postcolonial left.

The Zara conspiracy is an entirely modern phenomenon. It has no original author. Antisemitic Russians sat down and wrote the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the early 20th century. There was an actual “Q” behind the QAnon conspiracy: a far-right activist who first appeared on 4chan message boards in 2017 to claim that a cabal of child abusers was conspiring against Donald Trump.

The Zara conspiracy was mass produced by social media users: an example of the madness of crowds rather than their supposed wisdom. The cause of the descent into hysteria was bizarre.

In early December Zara launched an advertising campaign featuring the model Kristen McMenamy wearing its latest collection in a sculptor’s studio. It clearly was a studio, by the way, and not a war zone in southern Israel or Gaza. McMenamy carried a mannequin wrapped in white fabric. The cry went up that the Spanish company was exploiting the suffering of Palestinians and that the mannequin was meant to represent a victim of Israeli aggression wrapped in a shroud.

The accusation was insane. No one in the photo shoot resembled a soldier or a casualty of war. Anyone who thought for 30 seconds before resorting to social media would have known that global brands plan their advertising campaigns months in advance.

Zara said the campaign presented “a series of images of unfinished sculptures in a sculptor’s studio and was created with the sole purpose of showcasing craft-made garments in an artistic context”. The idea for the studio setting was conceived in July. The photo shoot was in September, weeks before the Hamas assault on Israel on 7 October.

No one cared. Melanie Elturk, the CEO of fashion brand Haute Hijab, said of the campaign, ‘this is sick. What kind of sick, twisted, and sadistic images am I looking at?’ #BoycottZara trended on Twitter, as users said that Zara was ‘utterly shameful and disgraceful”’.

To justify their condemnations, activists developed ever-weirder theories. A piece of cardboard in the photoshoot was meant to be a map of Israel/Palestine turned upside down. Because a Zara executive had once invited an extreme right-wing Israeli politician to a meeting, the whole company was damned.

Astonishingly, or maybe not so astonishingly to anyone who follows online manias, the fake accusations worked. Zara stores in Glasgow, Toronto. Hanover, Melbourne and Amsterdam were targeted.

What on earth could Zara do? PR specialists normally say that the worst type of apology is the non-apology apology, when a public figure or institution shows no remorse, but instead says that they are sorry that people are offended. Yet Zara had not sought to trivialize or profit from the war so what else could it do but offer a non-apology apology? The company duly said it was sorry that people were upset.

“Unfortunately, some customers felt offended by these images, which have now been removed, and saw in them something far from what was intended when they were created,” it said on 13 December, and pulled the advertising campaign

That was two-weeks ago and yet still the protests in Zara stores continue. On 23 December activists targeted Zara on Oxford Street chanting , 'Zara, Zara, you can't hide, stop supporting genocide', even though Zara was not, in fact,  supporting genocide. On Boxing Day, they were at the Stratford shopping centre.

Zara has apologised for an offence it did not commit. There is no way that any serious person can believe the charges against it. And yet believe them the protestors do. Or at the very least they pretend to believe for the sake of keeping in with their allies.

Maybe nothing will come of the protests. One could have argued in 2017, after all, that QAnon was essentially simple-minded people living out their fantasies online. Certainly, every sane American knew that there was no clique of paedophiles running the Democrat party, but where was the harm in the conspiracy theory?

Then QAnon supporters stormed the US capitol in January 2021. Will the same story play out from the Gaza protests? As far as I can tell, no one on the left is challenging the paranoia. I have yet to see the fact-checkers of the BBC and Channel 4 warning about the fake news on the left with anything like the gusto with which they treat its counterparts on the right.

To be fair, the scale of disinformation around the Gaza war is off the charts, and it is impossible to chase down every lie. But when fake news goes from online fantasies to real world protests, from 4chan to the Capitol, from Twitter to the Westfield shopping centre, it’s worth taking notice.

Sensible supporters of a Palestinian state ought to be the most concerned. No one apart from fascists, Islamists and far leftists believes that Israel should not defend itself. And yet the scale of its military action in Gaza is outraging world opinion. Mainstream politicians, who might one day put pressure on Israel, remain very wary about reflecting the anger on the streets.

They look at the insane conspiracy theories on the western left and see them as no different from the insane conspiracy theories that motivate Hamas, and they back away.

The Palestinians need many things: an end to the Netanyahu government, and an end to Hamas. But they could also use allies in the West who do not discredit their cause with dark, gibbering fantasies.

[capybaracorn]

Demands for Canada to stop supplying weapons to Israel grow louder

But loopholes and a lack of transparency stall efforts to hold government accountable for its role in arming Israel.

Montreal, Canada – Human rights advocates are accusing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government of misleading the public over weapons sales to Israel, which have come under greater scrutiny amid the deadly Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

At issue is legislation that prohibits the government from exporting military equipment to foreign actors if there is a risk it can be used in human rights abuses.

But regulatory loopholes, combined with a lack of clarity over what Canada sends to Israel, have complicated efforts to end the transfers.

Dozens of Canadian civil society groups this month urged Trudeau to end arms exports to Israel, arguing they violate Canadian and international law because the weapons could be used in the Gaza Strip.

But in the face of mounting pressure since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, Canada’s foreign affairs ministry has tried to downplay the state’s role in helping Israel build its arsenal.

“Global Affairs Canada can confirm that Canada has not received any requests, and therefore not issued any permits, for full weapon systems for major conventional arms or light weapons to Israel for over 30 years,” the department told Al Jazeera in an email on Friday.

“The permits which have been granted since October 7, 2023, are for the export of non-lethal equipment.”

But advocates say this misrepresents the total volume of Canada’s military exports to Israel, which totalled more than $15m ($21.3m Canadian) in 2022, according to the government’s own figures.

It also shines a spotlight on the nation’s longstanding lack of transparency around these transfers.

“Canadian companies have exported over [$84m, $114m Canadian] in military goods to Israel since 2015 when the Trudeau government was elected,” said Michael Bueckert, vice president of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, an advocacy group.

“And they have continued to approve arms exports since October 7 despite the clear risk of genocide in Gaza,” Bueckert told Al Jazeera.

“Unable to defend its own policy, this government is misleading Canadians into thinking that we aren’t exporting weapons to Israel at all. As Canadians increasingly demand that their government impose an arms embargo on Israel, politicians are trying to pretend that the arms trade doesn’t exist.”

Lack of information

While Canada may not transfer full weapons systems to Israel, the two countries enjoy “a consistent arms trade relationship”, said Kelsey Gallagher, a researcher at Project Ploughshares, a peace research institute.

The vast majority of Canada’s military exports to Israel come in the form of parts and components. These typically fall into three categories, Gallagher explained: electronics and space equipment; military aerospace exports and components; and finally, bombs, missiles, rockets and general military explosives and components.

But beyond these broad categories, which were gleaned by examining Canada’s own domestic and international reports on weapons exports, Gallagher said it remains unclear “what these actual pieces of technology are”.

“We don’t know what companies are exporting them. We don’t know exactly what their end use is,” he told Al Jazeera.

Global Affairs Canada did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s question about what “non-lethal equipment” the government has approved for export to Israel since October 7.

“What does this mean? No one knows because there’s no definition of that and it really could be quite a number of things,” said Henry Off, a Toronto-based lawyer and board member of the group Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights (CLAIHR).

Human rights lawyers and activists also suspect that Canadian military components are reaching Israel via the United States, including for installation in fighter jets such as the F-35 aircraft.

But these transfers are difficult to track because a decades-old deal between Canada and the US – 1956’s Defence Production Sharing Agreement – has created “a unique and comprehensive set of loopholes that are afforded to Canadian arms transfers to the US”, said Gallagher.

“These exports are treated with zero transparency. There is no regulation of, or reporting of, the transfer of Canadian-made military components to the US, including those that could be re-transferred to Israel,” he said.

The result, he added, is that “it is very difficult to challenge what are problematic transfers if we do not have the information with which to do so”.

Domestic, international law

Despite these hurdles, Canadian human rights advocates are pressuring the government to end its weapons sales to Israel, particularly in light of the Israeli military’s continued assault on Gaza.

Nearly 28,000 Palestinians have been killed over the past four months and rights advocates have meticulously documented the impact on the ground of Israel’s indiscriminate bombing, and its vast destruction of the enclave. The world’s top court, the International Court of Justice, also determined last month that Palestinians in Gaza face a plausible risk of genocide.

Against that backdrop, eliminating weapons transfers to Israel is effectively a demand for “Canada [to] abide by its own laws”, said Off, the Toronto lawyer.

That’s because Canada’s Export and Import Permits Act obliges the foreign minister to “deny exports and brokering permit applications for military goods and technology … if there is a substantial risk that the items would undermine peace and security”.

The minister should also deny exports if they “could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws” or in “serious acts of gender-based violence or serious acts of violence against women and children”, the law states.

Meanwhile, Canada is also party to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), a United Nations pact that bans transfers if states have knowledge the arms could be used in genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other violations of international law.

But according to Off, despite a growing list of Israeli human rights violations since October 7, Canada “has been approving the transfer of military goods and technology that might fuel” them.

Late last month, Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights wrote a letter to Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly demanding an immediate end to the transfers. The group said it would consider next steps, including possible legal action, if action is not taken.

‘It takes a village’

Still, Canada insists that it maintains one of the strongest arms export control regimes in the world.

Asked whether his government intends to end arms transfers to Israel, Trudeau said in Parliament on January 31 that Canada “puts human rights and protection of human rights at the centre of all our decision-making”.

“It has always been the case and we have been consistent in making sure that we are responsible in the way we do that. We will continue to be so,” the prime minister said.

Gallagher, at Project Ploughshares, told Al Jazeera, however, that Canada maintains “a level of permissibility” in choosing which countries it chooses to arm, including Israel.

And while Canadian weapons exports to the Israeli government pale in comparison to other countries – notably the US, which sends billions of dollars in military aid to Israel annually – Off said, “Any difference is a difference.”

“It takes a village to make these instruments of death and it should make a difference if we cut off Canada’s contributions,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that the pressure on Canada also sends a message to other countries “potentially aiding and abetting Israel’s slaughter of Gaza”.

“If you send arms to countries committing serious violations of international humanitarian law, you will be held to account.”

[i-am-aprl]

In a historic turn of events today, 5 April, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted in favour of a resolution calling for a ban on arms sales to Israel to ‘prevent further violations of international humanitarian law and violations and abuses of human rights.’

Twenty-eight countries voted for the resolution, with Argentina, Bulgaria, Germany, Malawi, Paraguay, and the United States voting against it. Further, 13 countries abstained from the vote.

African countries that voted in favour include Algeria, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Eritrea, The Gambia, Ghana, Morocco, Somalia, South Africa and Sudan. People and governments in these African states have protested in various ways over the past six months against Israel’s military operation, which has killed more than 33,000 Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, injured more than 75,000, and caused a healthcare, hunger, and refugee crisis.

Meanwhile, Benin and Cameroon abstained. The southern African country of Malawi voted in line with Global North countries like the United States and Germany.

This resolution, however, is not legally binding.

As Africans, what do you think about African Union member-states voting in favour of arms flows to Israel? And, what do you say about these countries collaborating with or normalising relations with Israel, as it continues its bombardment and siege of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip? Let us know in the comments.

[veganism]

The genocide is also experimentation on living beings

Israel is currently testing new weapons in Gaza, some of which will soon be sold globally as "battle-tested," according to Antony Loewenstein, an author who has written a widely acclaimed book on the issue.

For years, the Israeli defense sector has used Palestine as a laboratory for new weapons and surveillance tech, he told Anadolu, adding that this is also the case in the current ongoing war on Gaza.

One of the main reasons why "many nations, democracies and dictatorships support Israeli occupation" of Palestine is because it allows them to buy these "battle-tested" weapons, asserted Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World.

Another aspect of Israel's war on Gaza has been the use of artificial intelligence technology, he said.

According to Loewenstein, AI has been one of the key targeting tools used by the Israeli military in its deadly campaign of airstrikes, leading to mass killings of Palestinians-now over 28,500-and damage on an unprecedented scale.

The current war on Gaza is "inarguably one of the most consequential and bloody," he said.

He described Israel's use of AI against Palestinians as "automated murder," stressing that this model "will be studied and copied by other nation-states" and Tel Aviv will sell them these technologies as tried and tested weapons.

In the last 50 years, Israel has exported hi-tech surveillance tools to at least 130 countries around the world.

To maintain its illegal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and blockade of the Gaza Strip, Israel has developed a range of tools and technologies that have made it the world's leading exporter of spyware and digital forensics tools.

But analysts say the intelligence failure during the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks casts doubts over Tel Avis's technological capabilities.

Israel's reliance on technology "is an illusion of safety, while imprisoning 2.3 million people under endless occupation," said Loewenstein, who is Jewish and holds Australian and German nationalities.

He described Israel's response in Gaza as "apocalyptic," stressing that the killings of Palestinian civilians, including children and women, is "on a scale of indiscriminate slaughter."

- 'BLOOD MONEY'

Loewenstein, who is also a journalist, said Israel has honed its weapons and technology expertise over decades as an occupying power, acting with increasing impunity in the Palestinian territories.

This led a small country like Israel to become one of the top 10 arms dealers in the world, he said, adding that Israeli arms sales in 2021 were "the highest on record, surging 55% over the previous two years to $11.3 billion."

In his book, Loewenstein explores thoroughly Israel's ties with autocracies and regimes engaged in mass displacement campaigns, and governments slinking their way into phones.

The Israeli NSO Group sold its well-known Pegasus software to numerous governments, a spyware tool for phones that gives access to the entire content, including conversations, text messages, emails and photos even when the device is switched off.

Israeli drones were first tested over Gaza, the besieged enclave that Loewenstein referred to as "the perfect laboratory for Israeli ingenuity in domination."

Surveillance technology developed in Israel has also been sold to the US in the form of watch towers now used on the border with Mexico.

The EU's border agency Frontex is known to have used Israeli drone technology to monitor refugees.

Loewenstein explains in his book that the EU has partnered with leading Israeli defense companies to use its drones, "and of course years of experience in Palestine is a key selling point."

"So again, one sees how there are so many examples of nations that are wanting to copy what Israel is doing in their own area in their own country on their own border," he said.

These technologies and "are sold by Israel as battle-tested," he said.

In other words, he contends that Palestinians essentially have become "guinea pigs," and despite some nations and the UN publicly criticizing the Israeli occupation, in reality "they're desperate for this technology for themselves for their own countries."

"And that's how in fact, the Palestine laboratory has been so successful for Israel for so long," he said.

In his exhaustive probe into Israel's dealings with arms sales around the world, he noted that the country has monetized the occupation of Palestine, by selling weapons, spyware tools and technologies to repressive regimes such as Rwanda during the genocide in 1994 and to Myanmar during its genocide against the Muslim Rohingya people in 2017.

"This to me is blood money. I mean, there's no other way to see that and again, as someone Jewish, who has spent many, many years reporting on this conflict, both within Israel and Palestine but also elsewhere, it's deeply shameful that Israel is making huge amounts of money from the misery of others," he said.

"This is not a legacy that I can be proud of."

- 'NO NATION ACTUALLY HOLDING ISRAEL TO ACCOUNT'

Profiting from misery is to some extent the nature of what capitalism has always been about, but Israel does this with a great deal of impunity, "because Israel does what it wants," said Loewenstein.

"There is no accountability, there is no transparency, there is no nation actually holding Israel to account," he added.

Israel's regime is shielded from any political backlash for years to come because nations are reliant on Israeli weapons and spyware, said the author.

Israel may not be the only player employing surveillance technology that leads to human rights violations, but it still plays a dominant role, which is why Loewenstein insists that it deserves singular attention.

Israel's foreign policy has always been "amoral and opportunistic," he said, calling on all nations to take a stand and hold Israel accountable, and acknowledge that the world is buying what Israel is selling.

[intersectionalpraxis]

here is part of the video:

This is an ongoing issue. The IOF is the fourth largest US-backed military in the world -is ranked 10th in arms selling in the world and 4th largest in military drones exports. Their entire industry is shrouded in mystery -we won't ever truly know the extent of the IOF's arms deals because there are little paper trails. Once you dig deep into this, you begin to see this 'testing' is for those who will purchase these weapons -it's beyond sick and depraved.

An older article, but this is still relevant about how the IOF gives weapons out to violent regimes. This isn't extensive, but for folks who don't know, the IOF has a LONG history of giving arms and weapons to other countries who have committed genocide, such as Rwanda in the 1990s. And to dictators, such as Pinochet.

[trans-girl-nausicaa]

i wonder if the liberal zionists (assuming the more “hardline” zionists would just universally justify all of the israeli state’s actions) who describe israel as a “non-racist” “land back project” for the benefit of “indigenous jews” know about israel’s arms sales to apartheid south africa in 1975? and to the genocidal serb army during the Bosnian civil war 1992-1995? (Or was that one OK because they mostly killed Muslims?) how does that fit into their theoretical model of the zionist project?

What do they think of Israel’s historical record of arms sales?

In 1994, Israeli-made bullets, rifles and grenades were allegedly used in Rwanda’s genocide which killed at least 800,000 people. Israel supplied weapons to the Serbian army that waged war against Bosnia from 1992-1995.

Despite the Israeli government’s own statement in 2018 declaring it had ceased sales to Myanmar, the Haaretz newspaper reported last year that weapons manufacturers continued supplying the military government until 2022, in violation of the 2017 international arms embargo against the country.

And, in September [2023], Israel supplied UAVs, missiles and mortars to Azerbaijan for its campaign to recapture Nagorno-Karabakh, during which 100,000 ethnic Armenians were displaced.

what do they think about israel offering to send nuclear weapons to an apartheid state?

and you can’t say “it was a different time” or say “it was bad but it was like necessary realpolitik” in good faith because the whole zionist argument is that israel as a project was a moral and necessary project the entire time. 1975 and 1995 really are not that long ago in geopolitical terms.

Israel has remained an international arms dealer to this day, selling arms to an estimated 130 countries.

i mean the zionists are the same people who equivocate and/or “softly” justify the 1948 Nakba which was a brazen genocide.

The accusations of holding israel to a “double standard” are also totally empty rhetoric.

1. Do you actually think that within the critics of israel there is a preponderance of people that are OK with apartheid and genocide in any case apart from when israel did it?

2. Putting that aside, if you are considering the question of moral “double standards,” what is YOUR universal moral standard? Are YOU OK with apartheid and genocide when committed by countries and actors other than israel, against predominantly non-jewish demographics? (Often using Israel-supplied weapons, of course.)

And when all is said and done, if you liberal zionists recognize the immorality of the israeli arms industry, how do you possibly plan to stop israel from continuing this abhorrent practice? short of the dissolution of the state of israel of course. Or is your ethnonationalism so strong that any sin is permissible so long as it profits the zionist project? what is your moral red line? what sin could israel possibly commit that you would consider the moral necessity of dissolving the israeli state?

to any jewish person reading, at what point does the supposed moral imperative of the sanctity of life outweigh the supposed moral imperative of a “jewish state?”

as a supposed inheritor of American nationality and Jewish ethnicity, under predominant ideological models there exists this supposed connection between me and America and between me and Zionism and between me and Israel. If i was born in Israel or if i moved there (perhaps to an illegal settlement in the west bank) i would immediately have a directly oppressive relationship to palestinians. (In a similar yet different way to the status i have as a white american...)

In my childhood I was educated about religion, about American history, (including the ugly parts of slavery and genocide and segregation, etc) about racism, about the holocaust, about israel, (including the ugliness of the nakba and the border walls and the checkpoints, etc). The pervasiveness of moral vacuousness and hipocrisy in this country have, for my entire adult life, made me feel alienated from other americans and, yes, from many American Jewish communities. Later in life I met other anti-zionist jews but i felt like there was no way to undo my foundation of irreligiosity, atheism, lack of feeling any strong ethnic, racial, religious, or national identity. (This was contributed to by the fact that one of my parents is an immigrant. a sense of between-ness made me feel an outsider to both my paternal and maternal heritages, and the entire idea of ethnicity and nationality felt somewhat constructed even from early childhood.)

Zionism is the state ideology of Israel and, it seems, the United States as well, partially so. (American Empire has to be propped up through ideology to manufacture consent.) Though, notably, the overwhelming majority of avowed Zionists in the US are, in fact, Evangelical Christians. But that’s something I don’t even want to get into right now.

One of the only things that DOESN’T make me feel alienated is internationalism. I feel a kinship with the distant Palestinian who is bombarded and shot with American-supplied weapons, and with the nearby American who is bludgeoned and shot by Israeli-trained police officers.

(Free Palestine, Death to the American Empire.)

[silicacid]

Dirty secret of Israel’s weapons exports: They’re tested on Palestinians

Weapons tested in each war Israel wages see a spike in global demand. The current Gaza war is the latest laboratory for its arms industry.

India – Israel’s largest military buyer, which operates more than 100 Israeli-made UAVs – purchased 34 Heron drones in this period, followed by France (24), Brazil (14) and Australia (10), according to a 2014 report by Drone Wars UK.

Colombia is one of an estimated 130 countries that have bought weapons, drones and cyberspying technology from Israel, the world’s 10th-largest weapons exporter.

A report from Amnesty International in 2019 noted that the whole process by which Israel sells arms is shrouded in secrecy “with no documentation of sales, one cannot know when [these arms] were sold, by which company, how many and so on”.

Amnesty found that “Israeli companies exported weapons which reached their destination after a series of transactions, thereby skirting international monitoring”.

Israel has not ratified the Arms Trade Treaty, which prohibits the sale of weapons at risk of being used in genocide and crimes against humanity. As such, its weapons exports have influenced the course of history for several nations, many led by controversial regimes.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

A journalist was barred from entering CANSEC, one of the world’s largest arms and weapons ‘defense trade show.’ The organizer stated they did not want to see headlines like, “War mongers gather in Ottawa” and get questions like, “how do you feel about killing children?”

This year, CANSEC only granted access to select, friendly media. Organizers wanted to avoid reports that are critical of war and those profiting from weapons sales that kill millions around the world every year. 

This despite the event’s sole purpose of showcasing and blatantly doing business in service of war and global conflict.

Every year since 1998,  hundreds of arms dealers, weapon manufacturers, foreign government representatives, Canadian ministers, surveillance manufacturers, and military officers have come to Ottawa to attend CANSEC. 

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[sayruq]

FOREIGN Secretary David Cameron approved continuing arms exports to Israel just two days after the country’s military killed three British aid workers, court documents have revealed. The news comes after the High Court reversed a previous dismissal of a case against the exports brought by the UK-based Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and the Al-Haq human rights organisation, which is based in the Palestinian West Bank. At an appeal hearing on Tuesday, the two groups were granted a full judicial review hearing challenging the UK Government's failure to halt weapons exports to Israel, which is set for October. The groups say exported weapons and parts risk being used in violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza.According to the UK Government’s export licencing criteria, Tory ministers must block arms sales if there is “a clear risk” that weapons might be used to commit or facilitate “internal repression” or “a serious violation of international humanitarian law”. At the High Court hearing on Tuesday, the Tory government’s lawyers did not argue that the case against arms exports is inarguable, instead saying that the court hasn’t seen all the relevant documents and that they can only be shared in closed, secret proceedings due to national security.

[good-old-gossip]

Arms experts and campaigners are questioning whether the drone used by the Israeli military to kill seven aid workers, including three former members of Britain's armed forces, was powered by a UK-made engine. The World Central Kitchen aid workers had just delivered more that 100 tonnes of food aid to a warehouse in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah on Monday when their convoy was reportedly hit multiple times by missiles in an attack involving a Hermes 450 drone. The attack, which the organisation's founder has said was deliberate and which the Israeli military has called "a grave mistake", has drawn global condemnation and escalated calls within the US and the UK for an end of arms sales to Israel. It has also drawn scrutiny from arms monitors and aviation experts who say they believe it's possible the drone reportedly involved in the attack was flying with an engine manufactured by the UK-based UAV Engines Limited (UEL). The company, located in the West Midlands' village of Shenstone, is a subsidiary of the Israeli defence contractor Elbit Systems. "The evidence seems to stack up that it is a UK engine and, if it’s not, then Elbit need to clarify that," Sam Perlo-Freeman, research coordinator at the UK-based Campaigns Against Arms Trade, said on Wednesday. "Definitely it seems to be based on a UK design at the very least." Among the evidence, said Perlo-Freeman, are specialist websites and reports which say that the Hermes 450 runs on a UK-made engine.

✍️: Dania Akkad

[palestinegenocide]

Key Developments 

NGO’s sue Denmark to stop arms sales to Israel

U.S. senators urge Biden to condition weapons sales to Israel

Israeli forces shoot dead 13-Palestinian child in occupied East Jerusalem

UNRWA: More children killed in four months of war on Gaza than in four years of global war

Six Palestinians killed in occupied West Bank over 24 hours, including three children.

14 Palestine Red Crescent staff remain in Israeli detention, says organization

US military ships, 100 soldiers depart for Gaza pier construction.

Netanyahu: Israel “will finish the job in Rafah”, reaffirming a ground operation.

US intelligence report: Captive release deal most practical way to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.

WFP: Food for 25,000 people delivered to Gaza City in first successful delivery to northern Gaza since February 20.

EU foreign policy chief: Israel using starvation as ‘weapon of war’

Israel reportedly bombs UNRWA warehouse, dedicated to distributing aid in central Rafah

[illustraction]

WALT DISNEY MOVIES by Ben Harman (2020-2024) - AMP: ALTERNATIVE MOVIE POSTERS (Part 1/10)

Long gone is the era where movie posters were designed and printed to make the moviegoer go wow with stunning artwork made by a skilled illustrator / designer.

That era ended in the late 80's-early 90's with the advent of photoshop and the standardization of production, creating images that would "fit" the needs of every country through "globalization", i.e. the denying of each nation and culture's singularities.

Thankfully salvation arrived in the late 2000's with independent movie theaters such as Alamo Drafthouse and their merchandising  arm, Mondo, who commissioned vibrant new creators / designers / Artists to create limited edition prints for the classic movies being screened.

In just 3 years by 2011, Mondo became a powerhouse releasing hundreds of prints (limited from 75 to 200 copies only) which sold out instantly (literally in less than 30 seconds!!!) on their website. Their example was followed by other theaters (Castro in San Francisco...) and Galleries (Bottleneck, Spoke Art, Mad Duck, DarkHall Mansion...) launching not only a truly Artistic movement called AMP, Alternative Movie Posters but also a new generation of incredibly talented creators / illustrators which THIS 10 PART BLOG is devoted to.

We start with most of the incredble limited eidtion prints create dby Ben Harman from his Disney series. he also did a Pixar series (Click on each image for details).

Director: Clyde Geronimi, Wolfgang Reitherman Actors: N/A

ALL OUR AMP / Limited edition prints ARE HERE

If you like this entry, check the other 9 parts of this week’s Blog as well as our Blog Archives

All our NEW POSTERS are here All our ON SALE posters are here

The posters above courtesy of ILLUSTRACTION GALLERY