Israeli components are included in a number of Norwegian weapons systems. This is despite political preferences to avoid Israeli products. Former ambassador Kåre Aas says that Norway is missing out on important cooperation. Sweden and Denmark pursue no boycott line.
Norwegian authorities accept that Israeli technology is today found in almost all high-technology systems, but would prefer to do without it. It is the need to be integrated into NATO that makes it necessary.
An article in Forsvarets Forum highlights how much Israeli technology is present in the Armed Forces. The angle taken is that this is regrettable. At the same time, former ambassador to Israel, Kåre Aas, is bold enough to say that the policy is stupid.
Diplomat Aas says he was surprised by the situation between Norway and Israel when he became ambassador to the country in 2020.
We were one of the few European countries that had no defence cooperation with Israel, he says, and “almost no political contacts”.
– Other European countries saw the potential and the opportunities that Israel represented, he says.
– Why did we stand out so much there?
– Norway was in a very special situation. It had to do with the whole question of Palestine, the abuses in the West Bank, illegal settlements and that type of thing.
Political considerations take precedence over our own defence needs.
He says he tried, without success, to get direct defence cooperation with Israel underway, but that it proved politically difficult.
That did not happen then, and has not happened since. But last year the government signed an agreement to purchase British frigates with subsystems from Israeli Elbit Systems.
Not only that – at least eight important weapons systems in the Armed Forces contain Israeli subsystems or components.
Even the frigates became a matter of controversy. MDG wanted Norway to develop its own solutions without Israeli components.
Defence Minister Tore O. Sandvik defends the pragmatic boycott line. A total boycott would cost too much.
– We do not sell weapons to Israel, and we do not purchase stand-alone Israeli weapons systems, says Defence Minister Tore O. Sandvik.
– But for us it is completely out of the question to go it alone in such a way that Norway would have defence materiel tailored in that manner. It would make it completely impossible to build up the Armed Forces, and it would also make it very difficult to be integrated into NATO.
Aas does not conceal that Norway is harming its own defence capability in order to comply with a boycott line towards Israel.
That we are the losers in relation to not having anything to do with Israeli smartness on the defence side, that is quite clear. Of that I am completely convinced.
Norway boycotts Israel in a number of areas: fruit and vegetables, wine. No goods produced in the West Bank.
In addition, Norway provides 2 billion annually to Palestine.
Kåre Aas was ambassador to Israel in the period 2020–2023. He now works for the consultancy firm Kruse Larsen as a PR adviser.
https://www.forsvaretsforum.no/cv90-f-35-forsvarsmateriell/sa-viktig-er-israelsk-teknologi-for-norske-vapen/487262