AT the heart of the biggest threat to Freedom in the world is, I firmly believe, this way of Business in the  name of " Security"  .  

Israel's booming secretive arms trade

New documentary argues success of country's weapons industry relies on exploiting Palestinians.

 Israel's secretive arms trade is booming as never before, according to the latest export figures.

 But it is also coming under mounting scrutiny as some analysts argue that Israel has grown

 dependent on exploiting the suffering of Palestinians for military and economic gain.

A new documentary, called The Lab, has led the way in turning the spotlight on Israel's arms i

ndustry. It claims that four million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have become little 

more than guinea pigs in military experiments designed to enrich a new elite of arms dealers 

and former generals.

The film's release this month in the United States follows news that Israeli sales of weapons and

 military systems hit a record high last year of $7.5bn, up from $5.8bn the previous year. 

A decade ago, Israeli exports were worth less than $2bn.

Israel is now ranked as one of the world's largest arms exporters - a considerable achievemen

t for a country smaller than New York.

Yotam Feldman, director of The Lab and a former journalist with Israel's Haaretz newspaper,

 says Israel has turned the occupied territories into a laboratory for refining, testing and 

showcasing its weapons systems.

His argument is supported by other analysts who have examined Israel's military industries.

Neve Gordon, a politics professor at Ben Gurion University, said: "You only have to read the

 brochures published by the arms industry in Israel. It's all in there. What they are selling is 

Israel's 'experience' and expertise gained from the occupation and its conflicts with its neighbours."

 Israel's secretive arms trade is booming as never before, according to the latest export figures. 

But it is also coming under mounting scrutiny as some analysts argue that Israel has grown

 dependent on exploiting the suffering of Palestinians for military and economic gain.

A new documentary, called The Lab, has led the way in turning the spotlight on Israel's arms 

industry. It claims that four million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have become little 

more than guinea pigs in military experiments designed to enrich a new elite of arms dealers

 and former generals.

The film's release this month in the United States follows news that Israeli sales of weapons 

and military systems hit a record high last year of $7.5bn, up from $5.8bn the previous year

. A decade ago, Israeli exports were worth less than $2bn.

Israel is now ranked as one of the world's largest arms exporters - a considerable achievement

 for a country smaller than New York.

Yotam Feldman, director of The Lab and a former journalist with Israel's Haaretz newspaper, says 

Israel has turned the occupied territories into a laboratory for refining, testing and showcasing its weapons systems.

His argument is supported by other analysts who have examined Israel's military industries.

Neve Gordon, a politics professor at Ben Gurion University, said: "You only have to read the 

brochures published by the arms industry in Israel. It's all in there. What they are selling is Israel's 'experience' and expertise gained from the occupation and its conflicts with its neighbours."

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'People like to buy things that have been tested'

Feldman's film - which won an award at DocAviv, Israel's documentary Oscars - shows arms dealers, army commanders and government ministers speaking frankly about the way the trade has become

 the engine of Israel's economic success during the global recession.

Leo Gleser, who specialises in developing new weapons markets in Latin America, observes: 

"The [Israeli] defence minister doesn't only deal with wars, he also makes sure the defence

 industry is busy selling goods."

The Lab suggests that arms sales have been steadily rising since 2002, when Israel reversed its withdrawals from Palestinian territory initiated by the Oslo accords. The Israeli army reinvaded the

 West Bank and Gaza in an operation known as Defensive Shield.

In parallel, many retired army officers moved into the new high-tech field. There they found a 

chance to test their security ideas, including developing systems for long-term surveillance, control

 and subjugation of "enemy" populations.

The biggest surge in the arms trade followed Operation Cast Lead, Israel's month-long attack on

 Gaza in winter 2008-09 that provoked international condemnation. More than 1,400 Palestinians

 were killed, as well as 13 Israelis. Sales that year reached $6bn for the first time.

Benjamin Ben Eliezer, a former defence minister turned industry minister, attributes Israel's success

 to the fact that "people like to buy things that have been tested. If Israel sells weapons, they have

 been tested, tried out. We can say we've used this 10 years, 15 years."

Nonetheless, The Lab's argument has proved controversial with some security experts. Shlomo 

Bron, a former air force general who now works at the Institute for National Security Studies at 

Tel Aviv University, rejected the film's premise.

"It may be true that in practice the military uses the occupied territories as a laboratory, but that

 is just an unfortunate effect of our conflict with the Palestinians. And we sell to other countries

 only because Israel itself is too small a market."

The film highlights the kind of innovations for which Israel has been feted by overseas security services. It pioneered the airborne drones that are now at the heart of the US programme of extra-judicial executions in the Middle East.

Israel hopes to repeat that success with missile interception systems such as Iron Dome, which was much on display when rockets were fired out of Gaza during last year's Operation Pillar of Cloud.

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This merging of theory, hardware and repeated "testing" in the field has had armies, police forces

 and the homeland security industries lining up to buy Israeli know-how, Feldman argues.

 The lessons learned in Gaza and the West Bank have also had applications in Afghanistan 

and Iraq.

Yoav Galant, the head of the Israeli army's southern command during Cast Lead, however

, criticises the double standards of the international community.

"While certain countries in Europe or Asia condemned us for attacking civilians, they sent their 

officers here, and I briefed generals from 10 countries," he says. "There's a lot of hypocrisy: they condemn you politically, while they ask you what your trick is, you Israelis, for turning blood into 

money."

A spokesman for the Israeli defence ministry called the arguments made in The Lab "flawed and illogical".

"Our success in defence industries reflects the fact that Israel has had to be resourceful and

 creative faced with an existential threat for more than 60 years as well as a series of wars with

 the Arab world."

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/08/201381410565517125.html