Australia handing nearly a billion dollars to banned Israeli arms firm

An Israeli arms company that is set to enjoy more than $900 million in Australian taxpayer funds is heavily involved in Israel’s suppression of Palestinians and its maintenance of apartheid, has been previously banned for producing cluster munitions, and has recently been banned by Australia’s ally Japan.

The ABC’s Andrew Greene today revealed Elbit Systems has won a $917 million contract to supply systems for the Australian Defence Force’s Infantry Fighting Vehicles. As Greene noted, the ADF in 2021 began stripping Elbit systems out of ADF equipment due to serious security risks the ADF believed the systems posed.

At the time, Elbit was also on the Future Fund’s list of excluded investments due to its production of illegal cluster munitions, which Elbit claims it no longer manufactures. The company was removed from the excluded list last year.

The company has also in the past manufactured white phosphorus munitions, but hasn’t reported manufacturing them in the past decade. The use of white phosphorus munitions near civilians is banned, but Amnesty International claims to have compiled detailed evidence that Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have used the munitions in southern Lebanon in recent months. The IDF has used the munitions in previous attacks in Gaza but there are no claims it is in use in the current assault on Gaza.

However, on February 5, Japanese trading giant Itochu Corp’s aviation arm announced it was suspending all work with Elbit under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in 2023. “Taking into consideration the International Court of Justice’s order on January 26, and that the Japanese government supports the role of the court, we have already suspended new activities related to the MOU, and plan to end the MOU by the end of February,” the company said.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz has also reported Elbit Systems gave weapons to Myanmar’s military regime in 2022, despite the Netanyahu government claiming Israel had ceased providing weapons in 2018. That means Elbit was providing weapons while the junta was murdering more than 1,500 people, including 100 children, in a brutal crackdown that, according to Human Rights Watch, involved:

Mass killings, torture, sexual violence, arbitrary arrests, and other abuses against protesters, journalists, lawyers, health workers and political opposition members amounting to crimes against humanity. Military attacks in the country’s northwest and southeast have resulted in numerous war crimes.

Elbit’s weapons have been extensively used by the IDF against Palestinians, with Israel advertising its weapons systems with footage of how they have been tested on Palestinians. Elbit products include surveillance systems, including equipment to prevent the movement of Palestinians between Jerusalem and the West Bank, attack and surveillance drones, so-called “smart” bombs and combat systems. The company is also currently involved in the forced displacement of thousands of Arab Bedouin Israeli citizens to accommodate its manufacturing plants.

Crikey has contacted the Department of Defence for comment but it did not respond in time for publication.