A Welcome to Arms, Again

Ex-genocidal-and-hasn't-learned-a-thing Germany cannot think of a better partner for making arms than genocidal Israel

One of Germany’s biggest – and most iconic – car manufacturers, Volkswagen (VW) and one of Israel’s most well-known, or rather infamous arms manufacturers, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, part of the global Rafael Group, are planning to collaborate. If the project is realized, VW will convert one of its German factories, in the historic city of Osnabrück, from making automobiles into producing components of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

There are good reasons why this cooperation has raised eyebrows. For one thing, it reflects not only VW’s bad and growing problems but those of Germany’s vital automobile sector, and thus, really the German economy as a whole. As the Financial Times has noted, the VW-Rafael project would mark “the highest-profile example yet of the German car industry, where profits have plunged,” trying to save itself by entering the “booming defense sector.”