Amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, Secretary of State Antony Blinken notified Congress, on two separate occasions last month, that he had circumvented their review to sell weapons to the Israeli government. On December 9, the sale included nearly 14,000 tank shells worth $106.5 million; on December 29, more than 50,000 artillery shells worth $147.5 million. As Blinken’s second notice suggests, sales under $100 million need not be reported to Congress, meaning that other surreptitious deals may also have been made in recent weeks.
On December 11, with far more fanfare, President Joe Biden’s White House and Department of Commerce announced the first beneficiary of recent legislation meant to spur domestic innovation: BAE Systems, a multinational weapons manufacturer, would be receiving $35 million in government subsidies to expand operations at its Microelectronics Center in New Hampshire.
While not quite the same as directly sending arms to Israel, funding BAE Systems provides a backdoor means of accomplishing the same goal.
The microchips produced by BAE Systems are used in fighter jets, including the F-35, as well as helicopter rockets, artillery explosives, and artillery guidance systems. According to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, the company has sold more than $380 million in weapons to Israel since 2016. As of this writing, more than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, about two-thirds of whom were women and children.
“This is a shameful misuse of federal funds, which should be directed for peaceful use here in the United States,” says Daisy Goodman, an organizer with the Vermont and New Hampshire chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), “not to upgrade and increase production of weapons being used to commit genocide in Gaza.”
The “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors” Act of 2022, according to the Congressional Research Service, aims to increase domestic production of semiconductors, a component in almost all electronic devices, by distributing $39 billion in government subsidies to companies in the supply chain to expand their U.S. operations.
Signing the CHIPS Act into law, Biden touted it as a “once-in-a-generation investment in America itself.” He was joined at the time by CEOs from the tech industry, such as Intel, but he also referenced the legislation’s relevance to weapons manufacturers, specifically in the production of Javelin missiles by Lockheed Martin. “We need these semiconductors not only for those Javelin missiles,” Biden said, “but also for weapons systems of the future.”
More than 550 companies applied in some form to the Department of Commerce for CHIPS Act funding, according to the department’s announcement from December 11. BAE Systems was the first among them to be selected for funds to “quadruple the production of chips necessary for critical defense programs, including the F-35 fighter jet program.”
BAE Systems’ parent company is headquartered in the United Kingdom, but its U.S. subsidiary has more than 100 locations from Maine to Hawaii. According to a company press release, CHIPS funding will allow it to modernize its Microelectronics Center in Nashua, New Hampshire, an effort that is further supported by the city and state. The company states that the funds will be put toward new tools to meet increasing demand from, primarily, the Department of Defense. “The [Microelectronics Center] develops advanced semiconductor technologies beyond those available commercially to meet demanding military requirements,” a BAE System press release reads.
“The increased efficiency will enable a scale-up in production to meet increasing demand for U.S. Department of Defense technology and provide critical microelectronics to non-defense industries including satellite communications and test and measurement equipment markets,” says Veronica Bonilla, director of media relations at BAE Systems.
As Blinken’s notices to Congress suggest, publicly available information about weapons sales is heavily curtailed. Similarly, BAE Systems declined to specify which weapons system components are manufactured at its Microelectronics Center.
“Although much of its production and sales are not well publicized, two examples of BAE products sold to Israel include 155mm mobile artillery systems, which has been used extensively by the Israeli Defense Force in its ground attack, and components of the F35 fighter jets being used to bomb Gaza,” Goodman says. “According to Amnesty International, the IDF’s horrific use of white phosphorus in Sderot was likely delivered by 155mm shells.”
BAE Systems’ sales to Israel have moved activists to target the company for years. From 2010 to 2018, activists inspired by Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, which advocates nonviolent opposition to the occupation, have organized against the company in Dearborn, Michigan; Ottawa and Toronto, Canada; Cambridge, England; Edinburgh and Glasgow, Scotland; Cardiff, Wales; and elsewhere.
Since then, opposition to BAE Systems has only become more intense. At the start of the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, more than 30 Palestinian labor unions and professional associations came together under the banner of Workers in Palestine to issue an urgent call to workers around the world: “Stop Arming Israel.” Among the weapons manufacturers that they called workers to disrupt is BAE Systems, whose locations across Europe have been blockaded by activists.
“Put simply, without BAE components and parts, Israel couldn’t carry out its assaults on Gaza,” a representative from Workers in Palestine, who chose to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal, tells The Progressive. “The company is integral to the global supply chain that makes the genocide of Palestinians possible, and disrupting their operations could have a major impact on the Israeli war machine.”
While Goodman is unaware of protest actions at BAE’s facility in Nashua, JVP is pursuing legal avenues to prevent the United States from further arming Israel.
“JVP recently filed an Amicus Brief in support of the Center for Constitutional Rights’ suit against the Biden Administration, which charges President Biden, Secretary Blinken, and [Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin] with abetting genocide of the Palestinian people, and asks the court to bar the United States from providing weapons and diplomatic support to Israel,” Goodman adds.
Although it is unclear whether the lawsuit would affect the company’s CHIPS funding, the line between the Biden Administration, BAE Systems, and the Israeli genocide in Gaza is hardly obscure. Take, for example, the artillery shells sold by Blinken to Israel on December 29. They were manufactured by BAE Systems.