Rights and Accountability 7 May 2025
Israel’s Rooster drone is being promoted at this week’s weapons show in Athens. (Ariel Gabay / Wikimedia Commons)
Athens is both the birthplace of democracy and its burial site.
This week the Greek capital is hosting a weapons fair that serves as a de facto funeral for the whole idea that ordinary folk have a say in matters of public interest.
We have all seen the apocalyptic images of Gaza’s destruction. We have all seen photos of children who have been massacred, maimed or starved to the point that they look like tiny skeletons.
Everyone with a sense of compassion is outraged. That outrage has been swept aside by the organizers of Defence Exhibition Athens (DEFEA), as the trade show is known.
If there is one thing worse than committing a genocide, it is trying to exploit that genocide for commerical gain. That is precisely what is happening at DEFEA.
Israel’s Robotican is using the event to promote its Rooster drone and the various “tactical tools” developed for that weapon. The Rooster works in tandem with a US-made robotic dog to “sniff” targets for Israel’s attacks in Gaza.
Israel’s ambassador in Greece and a representative of Rafael, a major Israeli weapons firm, are both scheduled to speak at a discussion on “cyber defense” during DEFEA.
Profiting from annihilation
Rafael is profiting handsomely from Gaza’s annihilation.
The firm has announced that the value of the new orders which it won in 2024 exceeded $8 billion. That was almost $4 billion higher than the total figure for new orders clinched two years earlier.
Greece is among the countries that have bought technology linked to Rafael’s Spike missiles – missiles that have been fired at Gaza amid the ongoing war of extermination.
Elbit Systems, another leading Israeli weapons firm, regards DEFEA as the “Mediterranean’s most important defense event.”
Elbit – the biggest supplier of drones used in Gaza – is well acquainted with Greece. A few years ago, it was awarded a lucrative contract to train warplane pilots in the southern city of Kalamata.With weary inevitability, the European Union has a significant involvement in DEFEA – even offering its “match-making” services to weapons firms.
To assert its “independence” from the US, the European Union is doing exactly what Donald Trump, that country’s president, wants – massively increasing its military expenditure.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict is cited as the primary reason for the EU’s splurge on weapons. To a certain extent, the EU is also following the terrible example set by Israel.
In 2024, Israel’s military spending hit $46.5 billion, a rise of 65 percent on the previous year. Ukraine and Israel are now the two countries in the world that spend the highest proportion of their national incomes on warfare.
Constantly spending more on weapons and armies is frankly obscene.
Our leaders crave obscenity. The agenda they are pursuing benefits nobody apart from weapons makers – those scoundrels who could not care less how many people die in Ukraine, Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen or anywhere else.
All they care about is the size of their bank accounts.
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