France blocks Israeli offensive weapons display at Paris defense expo

The French Defense Ministry blocked Israel from displaying offensive weapons at the Paris Airshow – one of the world’s largest defense technology exhibitions – by erecting large black walls around the Israeli exhibit under cover of darkness early Monday morning.

The move reportedly came after France requested that Israel only put its defensive weapons on display, following the onset of Israeli strikes against the Iranian regime.  

“The exhibition organizers responded by erecting a black wall that blocks the Israeli pavilions and creates segregation between the Israeli industry pavilions and dozens of other pavilions (Turkish, Chinese, and others),” Israel’s Defense Ministry said in a statement. “This unilateral action was carried out in the middle of the night after Israeli defense officials and companies had already finished setting up their display.”

The ministry stressed that the move came just as Israel was seeking to make the world a safer place from Iranian nuclear and ballistic missiles.

“This outrageous and unprecedented decision reeks of policy-driven and commercial considerations. This comes at a time when Israel is fighting a necessary and just war to eliminate the nuclear and ballistic threat facing the Middle East, Europe, and the entire world,” the statement said, alleging that the French were using it as an excuse to eliminate Israeli competition from the exhibition:

“The French are hiding behind supposedly political considerations to exclude Israeli offensive weapons from an international exhibition – weapons that compete with French industries. This is particularly striking given Israeli technologies' impressive and precise performance in Iran.”

According to the French government, Israel should not have been at the conference at all: Last May, the French government sought to exclude Israel from the event, but a French court ordered the Paris Air Show to allow Israel to participate. 

Defense Ministry Director-General Amir Baram said that France was discriminating against Israel, as no other countries, including China and Turkey, were subjected to similar treatment and that it represented “absolutely, bluntly” antisemitism. 

“Israeli industry is very troubling to them because it doesn't just display things at exhibitions – it proves them in practice,” Baram said, remarking that Israel had demonstrated “ability to bring weapons from hundreds of kilometers away to the bedroom where Iran's most important nuclear scientist sleeps.”

Baram added that Israel was filing a petition with the French courts to have the black walls removed.

“We're not backing down. We're filing court petitions in France today," he said, stressing that this was antisemitism on a state level: “This comes from the government, from the very top. This is completely a state-level decision,” he said. 

Boaz Levy, President and CEO of Israel Aerospace Industries, echoed Baram’s sentiment:

“Following decades of participation in the Paris Airshow and discussions with the French authorities, we received all of the authorizations to participate in the Airshow and have done everything they requested from us. Last night, after our booth was set up and ready for the show, we were asked to remove some of our systems from the booth. We tried to negotiate with them, but it seems these orders came from the highest levels in Paris, and this morning, when we arrived at our booth, we were shocked to find out that we were blocked by black walls built overnight, which reminds us of the dark days of when Jews were segmented from European society,” Levy said in a statement.

He continued by expressing deep personal concern over the incident:

“As the son of a Holocaust survivor, I am very disturbed that not even 100 years after the Holocaust, our people are being discriminated against due to their religion. This type of behavior is not acceptable and discriminates against us as Israelis and Jewish people since all of the other participants in this Airshow do not have these limitations."

Levy concluded with strong criticism of the organizers and French authorities:

“We are shocked by the behavior of the Paris Airshow organizers and the French authorities who blocked our team from entering our booth.”