Tag Archives: Israel and Iran

How to Make Money No Matter What

Leave a reply

Sales of U.S. weapons to Israel have surged since October 2023, with Washington approving more than $32 billion in armaments, ammunition and other equipment to the Israeli military…Israel responded to the Oct. 7, 2023, attack led by Hamas, which killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, with a military invasion that has killed more than 68,000 people in Gaza—including more than 18,000 children—according to Gaza health authorities…The fighting throughout the region has presented a fresh opportunity for defense companies in the American heartland and, to a lesser extent, tech giants on the West Coast…

The American company that has brought in the most Israeli business since the Gaza war began is Boeing. The U.S. greenlighted an $18.8 billion sale of Boeing F-15 strike fighters in 2024 to Israel for delivery beginning in 2029. In 2025, various partnerships in which Boeing plays a leading role got approval for $7.9 billion of sales of guided bombs and associated kits…The biggest defense sales approved by Washington are for jet fighters and airborne-guided bombs, reflecting the crucial role of aerial bombings in the conflict…Israel’s Eitan armored fighting vehicles, which have been used widely across Gaza, are equipped with a hull from Wisconsin-based Oshkosh and an engine made by Rolls-Royce’s U.S. unit in Michigan. Caterpillar’s D9 armored bulldozers—used to clear rubble and destroy residences and other structures in Gaza—have been ubiquitous.

In some cases, companies have faced a backlash from investors and employees over their sales to the Israeli military. In 2024, three Norwegian investment funds have sold their stakes in Oshkosh, Palantir Technologies, Caterpillar and Thyssenkrupp over the use of their products for the war in Gaza. On Oct. 1 2025, Dutch pension fund ABP—the biggest in the Netherlands, with more than $400 billion under management—sold its €387 million, or $448 million, stake in Caterpillar, citing concerns over Gaza.

In September 2025, Microsoft disabled the Israeli Defense Ministry’s access to some cloud services in response to staff protests. Before the war began, Microsoft and a partnership between Alphabet-owned Google and Amazon.com had clinched deals with Israel to provide artificial-intelligence and cloud-computing services to the military. Meanwhile, AI giant Palantir, co-founded by Trump ally Peter Thiel, entered into a partnership with the Israeli Defense Ministry in January 2024. At a May 2025 conference, Palantir Chief Executive Alex Karp responded to accusations from a protester that Israel used Palantir’s technology to kill Palestinians, saying that those who were killed were “mostly terrorists.”

American companies have also found business opportunities in responding to the humanitarian crisis sparked by the war. The U.S. State Department said in June 2025 that it had allocated $30 million to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, led by former Trump adviser Johnnie Moore, to oversee aid handouts. The foundation hired American contractors Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions to provide security for the distribution efforts, which have been beset by dysfunction and violence.

In its 2025 annual report, Lockheed Martin said it had benefited from increased American defense funding related to Israel and Ukraine, notably munitions purchases. Revenue at its missiles division rose 13% last year to $12.7 billion…Armored-vehicles maker Oshkosh said an Israeli order of tactical vehicles had extended the lifespan of a production line that was due to shut in 2024.  In its latest 2025 report, Italian contractor Leonardo, whose U.S. unit is selling tanker trailers to Israel, said its international sales should remain stable in 2025 because of “the continuing conflicts in both Ukraine and Israel.”

Excerpt from Benoit Faucon, The Gaza War Has Been Big Business for U.S. Companies, WSJ, Nov. 12, 2025

How to Kill Scientists and Get Away with It

Leave a reply

When Israel’s attacks on Iran began before dawn on June 13, 2025 explosions shattered the homes of some of Iran’s top scientists… All nine were killed in near-simultaneous attacks to prevent them from going into hiding…The attack on the scientists was considered so fantastical by even its planners that it was called “Operation Narnia,” after the fictional C.S. Lewis series…A week after the June 13 attacks, Israel used a drone to kill another scientist who was being kept in what was supposed to be a safe house in Tehran. The person hasn’t been named…The deadly airstrikes were the first to target Iran’s nuclear scientists since 2020, when Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was gunned down with a remote-controlled weapon. Israel has never denied or confirmed its role in the deaths of five Iranian scientists between 2010 and 2020.

Among the most important targets was Fereydoon Abbasi-Devani, the former head of the Atomic Agency of Iran and one of the founders of Iran’s nuclear weapons-related work…Another killed scientist was Mohammad Mehdi Teranchi, who led a unit under Fakhrizadeh focusing on high explosives, which are needed to detonate a nuclear weapon…

Iran has used universities like Shahid Beheshti, the Sharif University of Technology and Malek Ashtar University to keep alive its nuclear-weapons expertise over the past two decades….At these universities, Iran often matches up its nuclear scientists on experiments and other studies with younger students. Two of the scientists killed on June 13, Ahmadreza Zolfaghari and Abdulhamid Minouchehr, published an article in the Annals of Nuclear Energy in June 2024 that used advanced computer modeling to show how neutron sources behave in a chain reaction. That information can be used for civilian purposes, like building a nuclear reactor, or to help trigger a chain reaction in a nuclear weapon. 

Excerpt from Laurence Norman, How Israel Killed Iran’s Top Nuclear Scientists, WSJ, June 29, 2025

Israel’s Killing Machine and the Enemies Within

Leave a reply

Israel stunned and hobbled Iran starting on June 13, 2025 when it pulled off an intelligence and military operation years in the making that struck high-level targets with precision. Guided by spies and artificial intelligence, the Israeli military unleashed a nighttime fusillade of warplanes and armed drones smuggled into Iran to quickly incapacitate many of its air defenses and missile systems. With greater freedom to fly over Iran, Israel bombarded key nuclear sites and killed top generals and scientists. By the time Iran mustered a response hours later, its ability to retaliate — already weakened by past Israeli strikes — was greatly diminished.

The Mossad and the military worked together for at least three years to lay the operational groundwork…To further diminish Iranian air defenses and missile systems, Mossad agents had smuggled precision weapons into Iran that were prepositioned to strike from close range…Those weapons included small, armed drones, which agents snuck into the country in vehicles…Mossad agents stationed weapons close to Iranian surface-to-air missile sites…To analyze information gathered from various sources, Israel used the latest artificial-intelligence…AI was used to help Israelis quickly sift through troves of data they had obtained….An investigation by The Associated Press conducted in early 2025 uncovered that the Israeli military uses U.S.-made AI models in war to sift through intelligence and intercept communications to learn the movements of its enemies. It’s been used in the wars with Hamas in Gaza and with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In addition to AI, the Mossad relied on spies to identify top nuclear scientists and members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard… At least eight members of the Guard, including the head of its missile program, were killed in a single Israeli strike on an underground bunker.

Another facet of the attack was to strike Iranian vehicles used to transport and launch missiles. The strategy was similar to a Ukrainian operation earlier this month in Russia. In that operation, nearly a third of Moscow’s strategic bomber fleet was destroyed or damaged with cheaply made drones snuck into Russian territory…In an interview with Iranian state-run television, the country’s police chief, Gen. Ahmadreza Radan, said “several vehicles carrying mini-drones and some tactical drones have been discovered.” ….

In the 2000s, Iranian centrifuges used for enriching uranium were destroyed by the so-called Stuxnet computer virus, believed to be an Israeli and American creation….In 2018, Israel stole an archive of Iranian nuclear research that included tens of thousands of pages of records…In July 2024, Israel killed a senior leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, with a bomb in a bedroom of a government guesthouse in Tehran.

Excerpts from JULIA FRANKEL and SAM MEDNICK, How Israel used spies, smuggled drones and AI to stun and hobble Iran, AP, June 17, 2025

Can Your Smartphone Kill You? You Bet.

Leave a reply

On September 17, 2024, nine people, including a child, have been killed after handheld pagers used by members of the armed group Hezbollah to communicate exploded across Lebanon, the country’s health minister says. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was among 2,800 other people who were wounded by the simultaneous blasts in Beirut and several other regions. Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, said the pagers belonged “to employees of various Hezbollah units and institutions” and confirmed the deaths of eight fighters…Hours before the explosions, Israel’s security cabinet said stopping Hezbollah attacks on the north of the country to allow the safe return of displaced residents was an official war goal.

Hezbollah said an unspecified number of pagers – which the group relies on heavily for communications due to the risk of mobile phones being hacked or tracked – exploded at around 15:30 local time (12:30 GMT) (September 17, 2024) in the capital Beirut and many other areas. One CCTV video showed an explosion in a man’s bag or pocket at a supermarket. He is then seen falling backwards to the ground and crying out in pain as other shoppers run for cover. Hours later, ambulances were still rushing to hospitals overwhelmed with the number of casualties, 200 of whom the health minister said were in a critical condition. Most of the wounds were at the level of the waist, face, eyes and hands, he said, adding: “A lot of casualties have lost fingers, in some cases all of them.”

Overheated lithium-ion batteries can catch fire, but experts said hacking into the pagers and making them overheat would not usually cause such explosions. A former British Army munitions expert, who asked not to be named, told the BBC the pagers would have likely been packed with between 10g and 20g of military-grade high explosive, hidden inside a fake electronic component. Once armed by a signal, called an alphanumeric text message, the next person to use the device would have triggered the explosive, the expert said.

On September 18, 2024, walkie-talkies detonated in Lebanon, killing at least 20 people and wounding 450 in a fresh attack targeting Hezbollah, a day after pager blasts killed at least 12 people, including children, and injured thousands across the country

Excerpt from David Gritten, Hezbollah blames Israel after pager explosions kill nine and injure thousands in Lebanon, BBC, Sept. 18, 2024