EU a "gold sponsor" of weapons fair featuring Israel's genocide profiteers

All support for Israel’s Elbit Systems is abhorrent.
Martin Pope ZUMA Press Wire

The European Union is a “gold sponsor” of a weapons fair featuring Israeli firms that are profiting from the genocide in Gaza.

Held in the Italian city of Milan this week, the International Astronautical Congress is supposedly focused on space.

Many of its participants are nonetheless either heavily involved with or have contributed to an exterminationist war being waged on earth. They include Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, the two leading providers of drones used in destroying Gaza and now Lebanon.

A gold sponsorship package for the Milan fair costs $140,000.

The sum is considerable in itself, yet the sponsorship has an even bigger symbolic value. Through becoming a gold sponsor, the European Commission (the EU’s executive) is saying that it is 100 percent committed to strengthening the weapons industry.

The EU knows full well that Israel is an important player in the global arms market.

Israel’s Elbit Systems is exhibiting Pluto, equipment for micro-satellites, in Milan.

According to the company’s promotional material, Pluto enables “AI-driven target investigation.”

This exhibition is taking place amid a genocide in which artificial intelligence (AI) has identified targets for Israeli attacks. Huge numbers of Palestinian civilians, primarily women and children, have been killed in those attacks.

Elbit is doing well from the genocide. It has an order backlog worth more than $21 billion.

The European Commission is not the only EU institution backing the Milan fair. The European Investment Bank is a bronze sponsor.

Already a major lender to Israel, the EIB launched an initiative on financing weapons firms in 2022.

Red carpet treatment

Among the hosts of the Milan fair are the Italian Space Agency and the country’s top arms maker Leonardo. The same Leonardo has manufactured guns fitted onto naval vessels with which Israel attacked Gaza in the early stages of the current genocide.

By organizing this fair, the Italian authorities are sending out a somewhat different message to their counterparts in France. While France has angered the Tel Aviv establishment by excluding Israeli firms from a new arms fair, Italy is still giving red carpet treatment to Israel’s merchants of death.

It should be added, however, that both countries are guilty of hypocrisy. Both France and Italy are cooperating with Israel’s weapons industry despite how their leaders are nominally opposed to selling Israel weapons.

Germany – the EU’s most powerful government – has been clearer. Olaf Scholz, the country’s chancellor, insisted this week that weapons exports to Israel will continue.

The European Commission keeps on siding with Israel, too, even if Josep Borrell, one of its vice presidents, claims to be horrified when massacres are carried out in Gaza.

Scientific research has been a key component of the EU’s relationship with Israel for decades. Throughout the Gaza genocide, the European Commission has been approving research grants for Israeli firms and institutions.

This week, the European Commission published a so-called “independent expert report” on its research activities.

The independent expert report on the interim evaluation of #HorizonEU is out.

It outlines recommendations on how the #research & #innovation Programme can adapt to emerging challenges & maximize its value throughout the remainder of its implementation.

Take a look ⬇️
— Horizon Europe🇪🇺 (@HorizonEU) October 16, 2024

Despite a brief reference to the “Israel-Hamas war” (a misleading choice of words, given that a genocide is taking place), the report does not grapple with how EU grants have benefited Israel.

Israel’s weapons firms are among the recipients of these grants. Whenever I have challenged EU representatives on that fact, they have replied that the activities being funded are of a purely civilian nature.

The new report – perhaps inadvertently – exposes such assurances as absurd. It alludes to a misunderstanding about “dual-use” technology – technology with both military and civilian applications.

“The current debate about ‘dual use’ technology commonly, and erroneously, assumes that one can easily identify and segregate it,” the report says. It recommends that the European Commission should be relaxed about funding projects with a potential military dimension.

While the honesty in this document is refreshing, the implicit embrace of weapons development is disturbing. It reflects how – for all its talk of ethics and values – the European Union is devoted to an industry that thrives on oppression and genocide.