Submitted by Steve Wilson, Nov 16, 2007 15:19

In fact, ImageSat's SOP program was a scrificial lamb in Venezuela, by a decision of ImageSat's board and management that were and remain controlled by IAI, Elbit, and their surrogate ImageSat managers. Today, as always since the imposition of U.S. sanctions, IAI and Elbit continue to promote, sell and deliver advanced military systems to Venezuela with the full knowledge of the Israeli AND U.S. governments, thinly concealing their circumvention of the U.S. arms embargo by delivering these systems through third party prime contractors (working for example Russia and Romania). Presumably everyone is already aware that the U.S. remains Venezuela's number one trading partner, providing most of the cash that is currently financing the Bolivarian Revolution. Although it now prohits the sale of military systems that are U.S. export controlled (which is not the case with respect to ImageSat satellites and services) the result is that Russian Sukoi 25 and 30, and possibly MIG 29 fighters, will replace aging and unmaintained U.S. F-16 and Mirage aircraft. The Russian aircraft will be outfitted with avionics and other advanced systems, primarily developed and supplied by IAI and Elbit, that the U.S. has long sought to prevent Venezuela from acquiring.

The central issue of this lawsuit, however, is whether or not a State owned company (like IAI, and its primary subcontractor in this case, Elbit) should be permitted to seek private capital financing as ImageSat did relentlessly and primarily in New York city between 1994 and 2000 (and as it succeeded in doing in an amount totalling roughly $120 million) to support the commercialization (and in this case the continuation) of its national defense programs and then subsequently reneg on commitments to its U.S. based private investors, thus far, with impunity.

In fact, Israel's space program is now wildly successful, responsible for billions of dollars in R&D support and new contracts for ongoing technology development and commercialization that were supposed to be the exclusive domain of ImageSat and ALL of its shareholders, rather than, as is the case today, for the sole benefit of the Israeli industrial defense establishment, including in particular IAI and Elbit.

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