Andrew Feinstein: So, a crucial component of the arms trade, and growing component – perhaps the fastest growing there is – is the broad area of homeland security, and of surveillance and repression equipment. By Israel attacking what are effectively, by all accounts, peaceful protesters- although, of course, Israel will reflect on them as something very different to that- Israel will then use that information, particularly with non-democratic autocratic regimes around the world- the regimes of Saudi Arabia, of the United Arab Emirates, various Arab countries of similar political systems – and they will say to them, “We have this problem on a daily basis, look how we are addressing it.”
[…] So, how does this affect the United States of America? First of all, because of the relationship between the U.S. government and the Israeli government, between U.S. Defense contractors and Israeli defense contractors – many of whom have a very big state component to their composition – it is possible to be testing what are effectively illegal forms of ammunition and weaponry in Israel’s activities. And second of all, it ensures that the United States can use similar marketing devices to the Israelis in selling their defense sector as a key component of the growing homeland security surveillance and repression industry.
I should also mention that there is a very important political dimension to all of this, as well. Now, the reality of the arms trade is that it’s by far the most corrupt trade in the world. A gentleman by the name of Joe Roeber, at Transparency International at the time, calculated that the arms trade is responsible for around forty percent of all corruption in world trade. And one of the reasons for this is the very close relationships between defense contractors and governments- governments both in their myriad state forms, but also in the form of political parties, and individual politicians.
And we have seen massive amounts of money flow into political campaigning across the political divides in the United States of America and in Israel. It’s most apparent in the U.S., where one can actually track the vast amounts of money that are given to individual candidates and to political parties, and the projects that those individual politicians get back for those defense contractors in their home states or districts. More here.