On December 11, activists opposing the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip picketed the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York City for the fifth time since September. The activists, collectively known as Demilitarize Brooklyn Navy Yard (DBNY), seek to pressure the manufacturing complex’s board of directors to evict two tenants connected to the Israeli military: Crye Precision, which produces camouflage and tactical gear, and Easy Aerial, which produces drones and related software.
Easy Aerial has come under pressure from activists following a report from the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights in November, which not only describes the Israeli assault on Gaza as “consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” but specifically highlights “the use by Israel of artificial intelligence in directing its military campaign.” The report explicitly points out the complicity of businesses that provide such technology.
Since October 2023, the Israeli genocide in Gaza has killed at least 44,000 Palestinians, including 17,000 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health as cited by Al Jazeera. The true toll of the genocide, obscured by the ongoing Israeli attacks and blockade, as well as a propaganda campaign by Israel, may top 330,000 deaths by the end of the year, according to estimates published in The Guardian.
As the U.S. government continues to provide Israel with both weapons and diplomatic cover — most recently, by voting against a UN resolution demanding a ceasefire, coincidentally also on December 11 — activists like DBNY see collective direct action as their best means of curbing the violence. They also describe their organizing as a direct response to solidarity requests from Palestinian labor unions urging workers around the world to halt the flow of weapons to Israel.
“Instrumental to Maintaining and Optimizing Israel’s Military Occupation”
Easy Aerial manufactures autonomous aerial and ground drones, and develops related software, with headquarters in Brooklyn and additional offices in Gan HaShomron, Israel. The company was founded in the United States in 2014 and had one of its early forays into the Israeli market in 2019, when it and an Israeli drone developer, Blue White Robotics, received a grant from the Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation, a joint Israeli-U.S. governmental initiative funding cooperation between the private sectors of both countries. The grant was meant to further development of drone software for “homeland security” applications, but the project never went to market due to a lack of subsequent funding and competition from other developers, according to Ivan Stamatovski, co-founder of Easy Aerial.
Nevertheless, Easy Aerial has been connected to the Israeli military since at least 2021, when the company advertised its products being used to monitor the Israeli border. In addition, Easy Aerial has provided drone-related software to Elbit Systems, the largest weapons developer for the Israeli military, since at least 2022, according to a social media post from Easy Aerial’s other co-founder, Ido Gur.
Stamatovski describes the company’s earlier efforts as “paid research,” but says that the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, are what really introduced Easy Aerial’s products into the field.
“What we make is ‘tethered drones’ that can stay in the air for multiple hours,” Stamatovski told Truthout. “Wherever you place them, they can provide overwatch and perimeter security. And this is what was an immediate need after October 7.”
Stamatovski acknowledges the demonstrations organized by DBNY, but writes them off as misguided, as he characterizes Easy Aerial’s drones as defensive rather than offensive. He also says the UN’s recent warnings to businesses providing technology to the Israeli military doesn’t apply to Easy Aerial for the same reason.
But legal advocates reject such distinctions between offensive and defensive technology as overly simplistic.
“New technologies, such as surveillance drones, have been instrumental to maintaining and optimizing Israel’s military occupation of the Palestinian territories and entrenching its system of apartheid, segregation, land grab and population control,” Marwa Fatafta of Access Now, which advocates for human rights in technology, told Truthout. “The argument that these surveillance drones are not used for military purposes is ludicrous, to say the least.”
Fatafta points out that companies like Easy Aerial presumably have little control over whether their products are deployed within the internationally recognized boundaries of Israel or in the Palestinian territories — which would make such companies complicit in the occupation. Furthermore, surveillance is an intrinsic aspect of both traditional warfare and AI-directed warfare, in which a vast amount of data, like surveillance footage, is used in the selection of targets.
Even if Easy Aerial claims ignorance of these facts, the company is not absolved of its responsibility, according to Fatafta. In addition to the aforementioned UN report implicating businesses that provide technology to the Israeli military, the International Court of Justice issued an opinion in July reiterating the illegality of Israel’s occupation, and obligating states — and, by extension, businesses therein — “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
“They Work Alongside War Criminals”
Since September, DBNY has been taking the fight to Easy Aerial’s doorstep. Each week, activists with the group distribute flyers to the more than 11,000 people who work for over 450 businesses in the 300-acre complex, including art studios, food vendors and entertainment companies. The flyers in English and Spanish provide background on Easy Aerial, Crye Precision and the Brooklyn Navy Yard itself, which was formerly a shipbuilding facility for the U.S. Navy, but today is owned by New York’s municipal government and managed by the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation as an industrial park. In addition to the weekly flyering, DBNY has organized demonstrations to coincide with the corporation’s board meetings and public events. Activists have also been directly petitioning the corporation’s executives, board members and staff, demanding they evict Easy Aerial and Crye Precision from the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
While the response from the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation to DBNY has been official silence paired with harassment from hired security — including drone surveillance — the response from workers has been “overwhelmingly positive,” according to the activists.
“Most of them have been shocked and disgusted to learn that they work alongside war criminals,” a spokesperson for DBNY, who declined to share their name due to the persecution of activists in the United States, told Truthout. “Despite the silence and escalating repression from Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, our movement is only getting stronger, with the increasing participation of local workers and community members.”
The Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Truthout.
Similarly, DBNY has received no response from Easy Aerial or Crye Precision, which supplies camouflage to the Israeli military via a private Israeli manufacturer, Agilite.
Crucial to DBNY’s messaging to the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s workers and neighbors is the fact that companies like Easy Aerial and Crye Precision are not only profiting from the Israeli genocide in Gaza, but from the increasingly militarized policing of people in the United States as well. As the activists’ flyers underscore, in addition to the Israeli military, Easy Aerial and Crye Precision supply the U.S. military, border patrol and even the New York City Police Department, which announced a partnership with Easy Aerial in 2022.
Ultimately, DBNY hopes to replicate the recent successes of other activists targeting weapons manufacturers supplying the Israeli military. Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Boston, for example, was able to force the closure of Elbit Systems’s offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in August, following a year of demonstrations, as reported by Cambridge Day.
According to DBNY, until the Brooklyn Navy Yard ceases to host businesses trading in “blood money” from targeting people in Gaza and the United States alike, all New Yorkers and visitors should boycott the complex. To that end, the activists have created a petition demanding the eviction of Easy Aerial and Crye Precision, as well as pledging a boycott until that time.
“We also urge all tenants and workers to take autonomous actions at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and by joining our campaign to disrupt, strike and boycott all genocide profiteers,” said the DBNY spokesperson. “Through sustained collective action, we will force Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation to terminate their contracts with Easy Aerial and Crye Precision, and cut ties with the military-industrial complex.”
“We will continue to fight until Crye Precision and Easy Aerial are expelled from the Brooklyn Navy Yard,” they continued. “And we will continue to resist until all war criminals are out of Brooklyn.”
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