Rights and Accountability 3 December 2025
Elbit Systems is the largest supplier of drones to Israel. (Duncan Cumming / Flickr)
Will Israel’s weapons makers soon receive greater funding from the European Union?
Michael Mann, the EU’s ambassador in Tel Aviv, has dropped a strong hint that such a possibility is being considered.
He recently visited the Technion, an Israeli university which doubles up as a laboratory for the arms industry, where he took part in a panel discussion titled “The Dual Use Dilemma.” The term “dual use” refers to technology that has both military and civilian applications.
Nominally a public servant, Mann and his fellow EU officials do not want the public to know too much about their activities.
After I submitted a freedom of information request, the EU’s diplomatic service confirmed that Mann’s colleagues had prepared a briefing paper in preparation for his Technion trip.
According to the diplomatic service, “this document contains background information on ethical and accountability challenges in research and development, particularly in areas where technologies may have both civilian and military applications. This includes internal and preliminary considerations on the implications of dual use research, questions of responsibility in scientific innovation, and ways in which research institutions can uphold ethical standards, comply with human rights obligations, and maintain public trust during periods of national crisis.”
The diplomatic service then offered a few excuses for why the paper in question had to remain under wraps.
Among those excuses were that “exposing” internal assessments on Israel’s participation in EU-funded research activities “would be negatively perceived by Israel.” Releasing the paper “would also hinder the atmosphere of mutual trust necessary for open exchanges with Israeli authorities and academic institutions.”
The excuses are nauseating. Why do EU diplomats want to preserve an “atmosphere of mutual trust” with a state carrying out a genocide?
The insistence on secrecy must raise suspicions that a significant number of EU officials favor aiding Israel’s weapons makers in a more direct and brazen manner than has been done until now.The organizers of the Technion event which Michael Mann attended were doubtlessly aware that the EU is taking steps to bolster the arms industry. Just a few days after that discussion was held, the EU’s governments decided to widen the scope of their research program Horizon Europe so that restrictions on financing weapons development would be removed.
Israel is already a key beneficiary of Horizon Europe. The stated ban on financing weapons has not prevented Israel’s arms industry from receiving grants earmarked for supposedly civilian research.
Nor has the ban stopped businesspeople with strong connections to the arms trade from participating.
Yehuda Borenstein worked for Elbit Systems – the top supplier of drones used to kill Palestinians – from 1995 until 2020. Today, he chairs RepAir, a firm that has been awarded a new EU research grant worth almost $3 million.
RepAir is focused on direct air capture – a technological fix for global warming, if one believes the hype.
That makes everything fine and dandy as far as Brussels officials are concerned. The grant for RepAir can be presented as a contribution toward realizing green policies and Borenstein’s quarter century in the arms industry can be ignored.
Shunned
Fortunately, there are plenty of conscientious people in the real world who are unwilling to be hoodwinked.
Irish universities have encountered much criticism for linking up with the Technion during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
At University College Dublin, two students have been summoned to a disciplinary hearing this week. Letters from UCD administrators allege that the students may have breached a code of conduct.
The students in question have joined protests against UCD’s cooperation with the Technion. The disciplinary procedure follows a lengthy period during which protesters at UCD have been placed under surveillance.
The University of Galway, meanwhile, is coordinating an EU-funded research project involving the Technion.
That university has cited legal advice as the reason why it cannot pull out of the project despite making a commitment that it would sever all ties with Israel.
The university is trying to evade scrutiny on this issue. When I submitted a freedom of information request for the legal advice on the project, the university refused to release it.
The advice from an unnamed lawyer was “imparted in a strictly confidential matter,” the university’s administration claimed.
The University of Galway now finds itself being shunned.
Margaretta D’Arcy was an artist and activist, who had been imprisoned in 2014 over a runway protest against how Shannon Airport now hosts a de facto US military base. She died last month at the age of 91.
D’Arcy registered her disgust at the tie-up with the Technion during the final weeks of her life. She handed back an honorary doctorate from the University of Galway.
The actor Olwen Fouéré and the filmmaker Margo Harkin have declined honorary degrees from the university for the same reason.
These artists have underscored that cooperation with Israel is impardonable.
The principled stances they are taking represent the very antithesis of the EU’s abject cowardice. More than two years after the Gaza genocide has begun, well-paid diplomats still balk at causing offense to the state perpetrating that genocide.
Add new comment