The Israeli arms company that provided the tools for the murder of Zomi Frankcom and six other World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers will still be handed more than $900 million by Australian taxpayers.
According to Israeli military sources cited in both Western and Israeli media, the drone used to triple strike the WCK convoy — despite the convoy alerting the Israel Defence Force, which knew about the route and time, that it had been targeted — was a Hermes 450 manufactured by Elbit Systems. Over the past 20 years, the IDF has increasingly relied on drones to attack Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza.
In February the ABC revealed the Defence Department had awarded Elbit Systems a $917 million contract, despite equipment previously supplied by the company being torn out of Australian systems due to national security concerns. As Crikey subsequently reported, Elbit Systems has a long history of scandal and complicity in human rights abuses both by the IDF and regimes elsewhere in the world. Earlier that month, Japanese trading giant Itochu Corp’s aviation arm severed ties with Elbit Systems in the wake of the International Court of Justice’s ruling on Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The result of Australia’s defence contract with Elbit Systems — a company not merely with a scandalous record (at one stage it was on the Future Fund’s prohibited investment list) but one also involved in the murder of an Australian engaged in crucial aid work — is that it will be handsomely rewarded by Australians.
The Defence Department has stonewalled Crikey’s efforts to uncover what assessment it undertook of Elbit Systems’ human rights record or of the actions of a major defence contractor in our ally Japan. It has failed to even acknowledge Crikey’s repeated questions about Elbit Systems. The department’s media team is notorious for its refusal to engage with anything other than requests for propaganda from the reporters — in 2020, the auditor-general released a highly critical assessment of the performance of the area.
Overnight, the office of Defence Minister Richard Marles similarly refused to respond to our questions about whether Elbit Systems’ role in the murder of Frankcom and other aid workers would lead to a reassessment of the contract to supply systems for the Australian Defence Force’s infantry fighting vehicles.
For now, despite the fulminations of the prime minister about how “unacceptable” the killing is, Defence and the government appear committed to rewarding a company complicit in the murder of an Australian — and hoping that the media loses interest in Zomi Frankcom and the circumstances in which she was murdered in Gaza.
How should Australia act in response to the death of Zomi Frankcom? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
Cancelling this contract immediately would send a signal to Israel that its actions are unacceptable, and have consequences. Failure to cancel it would equally imply that this conduct is acceptable.
Agree
Why not go further? In my mind, anything short of a recall of our ambassador to Tel-Aviv signals we are OK with this.
It should have happened weeks ago.
The killing of the aid workers is atrocious! It’s a tragedy for the loved ones of the Australian woman who died. So is the murder of the other 33,000 human beings who have been the recipients of drone targeting, bombs & the other forms of lethal attention! Not to mention the deliberate starvation policy directed towards the population of Gaza! Enough said! ??
Enough said? For the choir here, yes. But it’ll need repeating ad nauseam before our enlightened leaders will take any notice.
They will do nothing until the US approves or acts itself. Shame on the lot of them.
Yet “more than 196 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since October, according to the US-funded Aid Worker Security Database, which records major incidents of violence against aid personnel.”
Who were the World Central Kitchen workers killed in Gaza? (bbc.com)
I think ‘enough was said’ months ago.
I share your frustrations. Many of our Federal leaders are nothing more than complicit with Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The Australian Federal Government has a long history of making decisions that help to commit such crimes and wrong doings, a long and ongoing example is that against Australia’s First Nations People. Genocide is very much rooted in our ongoing history of imperialism, sadly, this is very much apart of our Australian Governments’ decision making processes of today. Those who don’t KNOW history are destined to repeat it, and then there are those Australian leaders who Statecraft history.
Why is Australia giving $900 million to the company that helped murder Zomi Frankcom?Wrong question, Bernard.
Why is Australia buying Elbit drones when its BMS operating system is known to infiltrate Australian defence security data?
Why is Albo reduced to muttering “unacceptable” while changing nothing about Australia’s support of Israel’s disproportionate blatant aggression?
Why has Australia not demanded immediate ceasefire an quick, permanent withdrawal of all Israel forces from Gaza, concurrent with essential food and supplies to civilian victims?
You heard it first here:
The fraying relationship between the U.S. and Israel over the latter country’s conduct of its war in Gaza got even worse on April 4, 2024, several days after Israel killed seven aid workers in a drone strike. President Joe Biden spoke to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and warned him that the U.S. would put conditions on future support for Israel based on how Israel addresses concerns about civilian casualties and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel must permit more food and other supplies into Gaza, the president said, and agree to an immediate cease-fire.
Biden’s ultimatum to Bibi: Change Gaza policy or we will.
“an immediate ceasefire” is needed to “protect innocent civilians” in Gaza and improve the humanitarian situation, the White House said.
Secretary of State Tony Blinken echoed that point in a press conference of his own on Thursday, saying: “If we don’t see the changes we need to see, there will be a change in our policy.”
It was back in the 1970s that I first had some involvement in actioning FoI claims (in a Commonwealth business entity). By the 1980s I was a “decision maker”.
I have no memory, under either role, of an FoI customer’s requirement being refused. There was the occasional redaction of a uninvolved third party’s name and, of course, of private contact and health information. But that was it.
By the late 1980s improved data file records and transmission capability meant it was even easier to meet the customer’s FoI order very quickly. At no time was a Minister or the CEO involved or, in most cases even aware of the order being received, actioned, and finalised.
Secrecy is invariably a demonstration of an organisational weakness. Importantly it means the issue to hand will not be subject to improvement given interested thinkers and innovators are kept in the dark.
William Forgan-Smith
Wjfs49@gmail.com