Next week, as the death toll in Gaza continues to rise, the governor of Arkansas will fly to Israel on public funds to see her father in order to advocate for further military investments.
As part of the seven-day journey, which is being promoted as a trade expedition, she will also travel to the United Arab Emirates.
In a press statement issued Thursday morning, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced her travel itinerary. She referred to her father, former Governor Mike Huckabee, to give the announcement a folkloric, familial feel.
I will have the opportunity to fly to Israel next week, a place I have visited with my family for a long time and where my dad is currently the U.S. Ambassador, to meet with business and government leaders and strengthen Arkansas’s economic relations, she added. As my dad loves to say, Israel is the one location in the world where you go for the first time and it feels like home. It is a center for innovation, particularly in manufacturing and agriculture.
For the majority of the globe, Israel no longer evokes words like “hub for innovation” or “coming home.”A growing percentage of Americans, including some conservatives, are more concerned about ethnic cleansing, widespread hunger, and genocide.
Over 60,000 Palestinians have died as a result of Israel’s siege of Gaza, including thousands of children. Many Gazans are practically starving to death as a result of the Israeli government’s refusal to permit a significant amount of food to enter the region while it fights Hamas. Additionally, even Ambassador Huckabee, a staunch friend of Israel, has recently voiced some mild criticism of Israeli settlers in the West Bank for terrorizing and killing Palestinians with such impunity.
What, outside familial ties, is driving Sanders to visit? According to the statement, the governor intends to hold roundtable discussions with Israeli defense and agritech firms, some of which have already made investments in Arkansas. That’s probably a reference to the enormous new weapons manufacturing facility that Raytheon Technologies and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, based in Israel, are building in Camden. These companies will soon be producing missiles that will be used as part of Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system.
Sanders is optimistic about Arkansas’s potential as a location for the manufacture of military hardware. She revealed a few weeks ago that L3Harris, another defense contractor, would increase its activities in Camden to build a sizable campus for the production of solid rocket motors. This might be a component of President Trump’s ideas for a Golden Dome that would imitate the Israeli system.
It’s realistic to assume that Israel’s need for missiles, which is largely financed by military assistance from Washington, will continue to be high in the upcoming years.Another, smaller source of funding for Israel’s war effort comes from states like Arkansas investing in Israeli government debt; these bond purchases are essentially loans to Israel to continue waging its astronomically costly wars, as the Arkansas Times recently reported.
Supporters of Israel like Sanders see this as a positive cycle: We give money to Israel to buy American armaments from manufacturers that create American jobs, but some Americans may view it as an odd use of American taxpayer dollars (or Arkansas teacher pensions).
However, Israel is not the only Middle Eastern nation keen to increase its armaments purchases. Potential clients and investors include wealthy Gulf nations like the United Arab Emirates. When Sanders travels to the United Arab Emirates, which is regarded as a global leader in technology, she intends to meet with businesses and give particular attention to growing Arkansas’ largest export sector, aerospace and military, according to a press statement released Thursday.
The United Arab Emirates, which is home to Dubai and other glitzy cities founded on vast oil wealth and a desperate migrant labor population, has a long history of violating human rights at home.Additionally, the UAE has been charged with providing weapons manufactured in China to the ruthless paramilitary groups in Sudan who are killing civilians in Darfur and other parts of the country.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette stated that Sanders will be joined by her husband, Bryan Sanders, and state economic leaders, but this was not included in her press release. According to a Sanders spokesperson who talked to the newspaper, the Arkansas Economic Development Commission Foundation, the governor’s office, and the state Department of Commerce will pay the expenses.
This summer will mark Sarah and Bryan Sanders’ second international trade trip. The governor’s travel to Paris and Switzerland in June, which included a visit to the Paris Air Show, which is said to have sparked the L3Harris investment in Camden, was accompanied by the first gentleman.
This is the governor’s office press release:
Sanders Declares a Trade Mission to the UAE and Israel
Little Rock, Arkansas. Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced today that she will be traveling to Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on a trade trip from Sunday, August 3rd to Saturday, August 9th.I will have the opportunity to fly to Israel next week, a place I have visited with my family for a long time and where my dad is currently the U.S. Ambassador, to meet with business and government leaders and strengthen Arkansas’s economic relations. As my dad loves to say, Israel is the one location in the world where you go for the first time and it feels like home. It is a center for innovation, particularly in manufacturing and agriculture. Following Israel, we will continue our efforts to attract more foreign investment and jobs to Arkansas by meeting with prominent government and business officials in the United Arab Emirates, a world leader in technology.In addition to meetings with top Israeli government officials, the governor’s economic mission will include cultural tours, including a tour of Judea and Samaria and the Western Wall. The governor will visit with a number of businesses that have already made investments in Arkansas and host roundtable discussions with Israeli defense and agritech firms. The governor will engage with businesses during her trip to the United Arab Emirates, with a particular emphasis on growing Arkansas’s biggest export sector, which is aerospace and military.Earlier this summer, the governor visited Paris and Switzerland to attend the Paris Air Show and speak with businesses that have made significant investments in Arkansas or are thinking about doing so. Following the Governor’s meeting with L3Harris in France, the business announced a half-billion-dollar investment in Camden, Arkansas, to build massive solid rocket motors. This visit has already resulted in the creation of employment and investment in the Natural State.
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