Commercialised occupation skills: Israeli security experience as an international brand
ISRAELI SECURITY PERSONNEL, technology, and ideas are immensely popular in places around the world that are perceived or marked as insecure. The fact that an idea, strategy, person, or technology comes from this small country in the Middle East seems to be enough for people and states to blindly believe its effectiveness. At the heart of this conviction is the Israeli experience in conflict, urban warfare, and dealing with terrorism. As an American journalist wrote: 'everybody's favourite soldier of fortune is an Israeli with military experience' (Johnson 2010: n.p. To illustrate this phenomenon, I will start with an example. A security company owned by an Israeli in the United States (US) was asked to set up security checkpoints in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. The location where they performed this task was Audubon Place, which is a private, rich enclave. When hurricane Katrina hit, the inhabitants were afraid that criminals roaming the city's streets would rob their homes and they decided to hire this private security company (PSC) the operatives of which (Israeli ex combatants) were helicoptered into Audubon Place by the American private military firm Blackwater, dressed in bulletproof vests and carrying M 16 automatic rifles. Interestingly, the inhabitants had specifically asked for Israeli security personnel. The operatives manned the gates of the enclave and made sure that no one entered. When interviewed by a journalist the Israeli ex combatants said they had 'been fighting the Palestinians all day, every day, our whole lives' emphasising that the mere look of their gun would scare away criminals, making this job a piece of cake in comparison (Scahill 2005: n.p. The Israeli founder of the company furthermore stated that [his] people were highly trained to operate in hostile environments. That fit well with the demand of the situation in New Orleans' (Hutchinson and Masson 2007: n.p. clearly making reference to their background in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF)