According to a new assessment by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Israel ranks 10th in terms of global arms exports from 2017 to 2021, with India, Azerbaijan, and Vietnam as its top beneficiaries.
Israel ranked 14th in terms of arms imports, with the United States, Germany, and Italy as its primary suppliers. According to statistics, between 2012 and 2016, there was a 19% growth.
From 2017 through 2021, the US contributed 92% of Israel’s weaponry purchases, including military aircraft and guided precision missiles. The F-35 combat aircraft “has been utilized in airstrikes on targets in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria since 2018,” according to SIPRI, and is also considered “a critical component of Israel’s capabilities to attack targets.”
Based on a report published by The New York Times in January of this year, the Indian government purchased Israel’s Pegasus spyware in 2017 as part of a $2 billion contract signed during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s maiden visit to the settler-colonial country.
The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) of the United States made the same acquisition in 2019.
According to The New York Times Magazine, Israel is planning its surveillance systems in the same way it plans its armaments, making Pegasus “a crucial component of its national security policy” and a tool for assuring Arab countries’ normalization of Israel and the Abraham Accords.
Given Israel’s prominence and weaponry exports, the international community’s declared support for the country makes sense.
The international community’s professed support for Palestine is negated in light of arms exports and Israel’s dominance. Not only is Palestine marginalized, but the arms sales with Israel clearly reveal cooperation in the colonial process, with Israel’s security narrative playing a key and profitable role in obtaining diplomatic support from the international world.
Which begs the question: why does the world community continue to claim to support Palestine while actively participating in the extermination of Palestinian territory?
This isn’t just about Israel’s gruesome displays in Gaza as it purposefully and perpetually targets civilians, children, hospitals, and infrastructure. aggressions over Gaza are the most visible demonstrates of Israeli brutality.
With nowhere to flee, Palestinians in Gaza have been subjected to terrible bombings and internal forced displacement on a regular basis, while Israel continues to demonstrate its military might.
Israel flaunts its unparalleled metaphorical pissing contest over the region while it cries wolf as Hamas DIY rockets are thrown back–which are a mere attempt to react to continuous repressive policies, displacement, incarcerations, and displacement all over the occupied territories– while the world governments put on fake crocodile tears and sell it more advanced arms or buy its own.
Within the international community, there has been a concerted push to support Israel’s security narrative. Israel’s security narrative is typically put into question only when the mainstream media makes a big deal out of human rights breaches, and even then, Palestinians are silenced by colonialism as conflict interpretations.
The US, Germany, and Italy, Israel’s key military suppliers, support the two-state solution, a diplomatic justification for colonization that is mistakenly interpreted as a vision for an independent Palestinian state. There is no such thing as such support.
In terms of the paradigm, however, Israel’s security narrative, as well as its regional and global power, takes precedence. Between diplomacy and the arms trade, Palestinians have few chances of achieving independence, especially if the two-state solution is permitted to continue as a cover for Israel’s atrocities.
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