US Company Sues Israeli Army for ‘Stealing’ Military Technology Secrets

Israeli Court in Jerusalem (File photo: AFP)
Israeli Court in Jerusalem (File photo: AFP)
TT

US Company Sues Israeli Army for ‘Stealing’ Military Technology Secrets

Israeli Court in Jerusalem (File photo: AFP)
Israeli Court in Jerusalem (File photo: AFP)

A US company that produces military technology filed a lawsuit at the Tel Aviv District Court against the Israeli Ministry of Defense and a brigadier general, claiming they stole technology secrets and used them in military training of combat units without permission.

Conflict Kinetics (CK) filed a suit claiming the Chief of Paratroopers and Infantry Corps for Israeli Defense Forces, Brigadier General Dan Goldfus, and under his responsibility as an envoy of his military establishment, obtained classified information about a combat training program.

CK claimed that Goldfus retrieved the information with malicious intent and used them in Israeli training programs, without permission and through a flagrant violation of rights.

The company said the information was provided to an Israeli company that manages war scenarios for the Israeli army, making these violations the responsibility of Goldfus, the military, and the Ministry of Defense.

Conflict Kinetics is one of the major companies that provide services to the US Army and Central Intelligence (CIA) and many of the armies and police in the world.

The Israeli military, the General Intelligence, and the Foreign Intelligence explored the possibility of cooperation with the company in 2015. Three years later, the Israeli naval commandos decided to test its system in military exercises, and negotiations began for this purpose.

According to the lawsuit, several delegations traveled to the US company, including senior officers and major generals.

The company explained its operations and technology but found later that the Ministry of Defense had chosen an Israeli company to run these exercises and that this company had started working while negotiations were in process.

The ministry had deceived and misled Conflict Kinetics, which later discovered that the Israeli company was operating according to the US company’s systems without its permission.

The Israeli court initially rejected this lawsuit for technical reasons but accepted it on Wednesday.

Conflict Kinetics announced that it would file a similar lawsuit against the Ministry of Defense, the Israeli army, and its generals at a US court. It demands that Israel stops using its technology and also seeks financial compensation for its losses.

The Ministry of Defense and the Israeli army denied the accusations, saying the Israeli company was chosen after winning a tender.



Taiwan President Will Visit Allies in South Pacific as Rival China Seeks Inroads

FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
TT

Taiwan President Will Visit Allies in South Pacific as Rival China Seeks Inroads

FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te will visit the self-governing island’s allies in the South Pacific, where rival China has been seeking diplomatic inroads.
The Foreign Ministry announced Friday that Lai would travel from Nov. 30 to Dec. 6 to the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau.
The trip comes against the background of Chinese loans, grants and security cooperation treaties with Pacific island nations that have aroused major concern in the US, New Zealand, Australia and others over Beijing's moves to assert military, political and economic control over the region.
Taiwan’s government has yet to confirm whether Lai will make a stop in Hawaii, although such visits are routine and unconfirmed Taiwanese media reports say he will stay for more than one day.
Under pressure from China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory and threatens to annex it by force if needed, Taiwan has just 12 formal diplomatic allies. However, it retains strong contacts with dozens of other nations, including the US, its main source of diplomatic and military support.
China has sought to whittle away traditional alliances in the South Pacific, signing a security agreement with the Solomon Islands shortly after it broke ties with Taiwan and winning over Nauru just weeks after Lai's election in January. Since then, China has been pouring money into infrastructure projects in its South Pacific allies, as it has around the world, in exchange for political support.
China objects strongly to such US stopovers by Taiwan's leaders, as well as visits to the island by leading American politicians, terming them as violations of US commitments not to afford diplomatic status to Taiwan after Washington switched formal recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
With the number of its diplomatic partners declining under Chinese pressure, Taiwan has redoubled efforts to take part in international forums, even from the sidelines. It has also fought to retain what diplomatic status it holds, including refusing a demand from South Africa last month that it move its representative office in its former diplomatic ally out of the capital.