The Israeli Defense Ministry\'s pavilion at the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget, France, has been a great success, judging by the 10,000 daily visitors - double that of the previous show, two years ago. Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror told Arutz-7 that there is a better way of judging Israel\'s success:
\"We look more at the people who are coming to talk seriously with us about our defense products, and I can just say that the amount of such meetings is just fantastic. I am referring to official representatives of countries, who come to see our products and who would also like to consider cooperating with us in different ways. It is sometimes surprising, but we are not ostracized as some may think; people have come to see us from Africa, and Arab nations, and Europe, and of course the U.S. We opened our exhibit one day later than the others, because of the Sabbath, but this made no difference, and the press coverage and the amount of visitors is just amazing... I have to add a word here: Many people don\'t like the idea that we sell arms. But the fact is that this is a security issue of the first degree for Israel. In order for us to develop and manufacture high-level arms for the IDF, we must have a certain level of quality to make it cost-effective. These amounts are too great to be sold to the IDF, so we must sell them around the world. Israel\'s defense industry is the only one that is expected to produce 60-70% for export...\"
Dror sang the praises of Israel\'s technological capabilities: \"Israel\'s technical expertise is unbelievable. We have here the only operational defense system against ballistic missiles, known as the Arrow, and our Green Pine radar system... We take an American-made F-16, for instance, and manufacture supplementary advanced systems to make it even better. Some American pilots took a look at our refurbished F-16, and they said that they simply envy the Israeli pilots who have a plane like this with the special avionics that we added... \" The Israeli pavilion is the 4th-largest at the exhibition, which will end this Friday.
\"We look more at the people who are coming to talk seriously with us about our defense products, and I can just say that the amount of such meetings is just fantastic. I am referring to official representatives of countries, who come to see our products and who would also like to consider cooperating with us in different ways. It is sometimes surprising, but we are not ostracized as some may think; people have come to see us from Africa, and Arab nations, and Europe, and of course the U.S. We opened our exhibit one day later than the others, because of the Sabbath, but this made no difference, and the press coverage and the amount of visitors is just amazing... I have to add a word here: Many people don\'t like the idea that we sell arms. But the fact is that this is a security issue of the first degree for Israel. In order for us to develop and manufacture high-level arms for the IDF, we must have a certain level of quality to make it cost-effective. These amounts are too great to be sold to the IDF, so we must sell them around the world. Israel\'s defense industry is the only one that is expected to produce 60-70% for export...\"
Dror sang the praises of Israel\'s technological capabilities: \"Israel\'s technical expertise is unbelievable. We have here the only operational defense system against ballistic missiles, known as the Arrow, and our Green Pine radar system... We take an American-made F-16, for instance, and manufacture supplementary advanced systems to make it even better. Some American pilots took a look at our refurbished F-16, and they said that they simply envy the Israeli pilots who have a plane like this with the special avionics that we added... \" The Israeli pavilion is the 4th-largest at the exhibition, which will end this Friday.