Rafael [Israel]

World ranking: 45
Total Military Sales: $760m
Military sales as % of total sales: 100%
Employees: 4,600¹
Military products include: missiles, radar and communication systems

Rafael Armament Development Authority Ltd, P.O.B 2250, Haifa, Israel 31021
Tel: 972 4-879 12 44 (public relations)

Rafael

Background

Rafael was founded in 1948 as Israel's National Research and Development Defence Laboratory.² It remains government-owned and is one of three companies that dominate Israeli military production, the other two being Israel Aerospace Industries and Israel Military Industries. Most Rafael manufacturing activity is composed of final assembly, testing and simulation. The manufacture of basic sub-systems and components is contracted out. Rafael has offices in Australia, Brazil, the Netherlands, South Korea, the UK and the US.³

Rafael in the UK
Rafael (UK Office), 3/5 Duke Street, London W1M 6BA;
Tel: + 44 (0) 207 224 4415

What it makes

Rafael is Israel's air-to-air missile specialist and develops missiles, weapon systems and electronic warfare, radar and communications systems for land, sea and air. Well-known products include the Derby and Python air-to-air missiles, the David artillery computer, tank-crew protection gear, night-vision equipment, the Popeye (AGM-142) air-to-sur-face standoff weapon and the Gill/Spike anti-tank guided missile.⁴

GlobalSecurity.org has stated that 'The Rafael operation in Haifa is reportedly the location of a nuclear weapons design laboratory (Division 20), a missile design development laboratory (Division 48) and a weapons assembly plant.' ⁵

Collaborations and exports

Rafael collaborates with a wide range of non-Israeli companies including BAE Systems, Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, MBDA, Northrop Grumman, Thales and Raytheon. ⁶ Examples include a joint venture with Lockheed Martin that allows Rafael to sell its Popeye and Python-4 missiles to the Pentagon; the production of two new torpedo decoy systems, the Subscut and the Lescut, in cooperation with BAE Systems and designed for the UK and US markets; ⁷ and a joint venture with the Eurospike Consortium to make Gill/Spike missiles for sale in Europe.⁸ Rafael expects orders worth $600m for Gill/Spike from Europe and seems likely to get them as the Netherlands, Finland and Poland ⁹ have already ordered the weapon. Gill/Spike is also operational in Singapore. ¹⁰

Other Rafael exports include the Barak ship-borne anti-missile system to Chile and Singapore,¹¹Popeye missiles to South Korea, ¹²and a co-production agreement with Turkey for Popeye II missiles.¹³

References

Unless otherwise indicated, world ranking (by military sales), military sales and military sales percentage are sourced from Defense News (21.7.03) and refer to 2002
1 Jane's International Defence Review, February 2002
2 www.rafael.co.il/web/rafnew/presentations/corporate-milestones.htm, accessed 23.08.03
3 www.rafael.co.il/web/rafnew/presentations/corporate-map.htm, accessed 23.08.03
4 Flight International, 22-28.01.02
5 www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/rafael.htm, accessed 23.08.03
6 www.rafael.co.il/web/rafnew/presentations/corporate-partnership.htm, accessed 23.08.03
7 www.defense-update.com/news/6702scutter.htm, 09.07.02, accessed 23.08.03
8 Defense News, 25 Feb-3 March 2002
9 Jane's Defence Weekly, 'Poland receives Spike final proposal', 16.07.03
10 www.eschel.co.il/directory/spike.htm, accessed 23.08.03
11 Shai Feldman & Yiftah Shapir, 'The Middle East Military Balance 2000-01', MIT Press, 2001; Dror Marom, 'Expose: Israel's Global Military Links', Tel Aviv Globes, 12.6.01. Both cited in Mandy Turner, 'Arming the Occuption', CAAT, October 2002
12 Feldman & Shapir, 2001. Cited in Turner 2002
13 Jennifer Washburn, Power Bloc: Turkey and Israel Lock Arms, The Progressive Magazine, Dec 1998. Cited in Turner 2002