Tel Aviv. The planned massive Israeli presence in International Defence Exhibition (IDEX) is in doubt after an official committee did not approve the flights of some 250 Israelis from the ministry of defence and defence companies. Ben Gurion airport is closed because of the pandemic and the committee was formed to approve special cases, and it denied the request of the Israeli delegations.
Some 50 Israeli defence companies will display their capabilities in the show. The three big ones –Israel aerospace industries (IAI), Rafael and Elbit Systems will have their own booths.
The smaller ones will display their capabilities in the booths of foreign companies some from the UAE.
Israeli companies have been active in the UAE even before the normalization agreement was signed. Those were mainly homeland security and Cyber companies.
Now the Israeli defence companies come full force.
IAI will have its own booth with visual and interactive displays at the exhibition. It will exhibit a wide range of systems with an emphasis on aerospace systems, civil aviation, mission aircraft and more.
It stresses comprehensive operational solutions – system of systems for a wide range of uses in the air, sea, land, space and in the cyber domain.
Throughout the exhibition IAI has planned to focus on promoting communication and local cooperation with local government agencies, defense forces, local industries and academic initiatives, in order to further expand the company’s activity in the region.
Boaz Levy, IAI’S president, said that the company sees its activities in the region as an opportunity to promote cooperation within the regional eco-system and is open to promoting defense as well as civilian endeavors on a range of topics, such as space and satellites, air defense and rocketry, intelligence, robotics, UAVs, cyber etc. This exhibition is a harbinger of long-term activity in the UAE and the region as a whole.
Efforts are being made to try and change the committee’s decision.
-The writer is an Israel-based freelance journalist
