This is a speech YAAKOV AHARON gave to the rally against the 2025 Indo-Pacific Weapons Expo in Sydney on 4 November.
Firstly I’d like to acknowledge that I’m on the unceded lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We are standing on ground zero of a genocide, which began a short walk from here and which continues to this day. We have bastardized the memory of First Nations people by building the casino skyscraper across from us, an absolute eyesore, and naming it after the legendary leader Barangaroo.
At the Indo-Pacific expo today, arms dealers are cozying up with politicians and pushing their merchandise. Their products are on the cutting edge of technology – technology that shreds Palestinian babies, that spies on Palestinians over there and on pro-Palestinian activists here.
One of the booths at the expo belongs to Bisalloy Steel, a Wollongong-based company. It is no secret that Bisalloy manufactures armoured steel for military use and exports it to Israel. It also has contracts to build AUKUS subs, and frigates for Australia’s Navy.
Today I will tell you exactly what armoured steel Bisalloy makes; which armoured vehicles it is for; and how the armoured steel in those vehicles is used by IDF to kill Palestinians.
All of Bisalloy’s armoured steel exported to Israel are approved by the Department of Defence. This government has no excuses.
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife hold thirteen million dollars in Bisalloy shares.
Senator Dave Sharma and several bosses of the Israel lobby are also among the shareholders.
And these war pigs are getting fat. Bisalloy’s share price has skyrocketed by one hundred and forty percent between October 7th and today.
As Australia’s only manufacturer of high-strength quenched and tempered steels, Bisalloy’s role in the global arms trade is almost irreplaceable. This means that if a tank or sub is entirely Australian made, then Bisalloy is almost certainly part of the supply line.
In 2018, Bisalloy announced its partnership with Israeli armoured vehicle manufacturer Plasan Re’em. The statement was headlined by photos from Plasan Reem’s brochures for its modified Toyota pick up trucks:
1. the Re’em Toyota Landcruiser 200
2. the Re’em Toyota Hilux, and
3. the Re’em Toyota J-79.
Except these are nothing like a normal Toyota. They weigh about one and a half times as much. Plasan Re’em modifies these cars to have the (quote) “same appearance, different characteristics” as an original model”.
Bisalloy’s 2018 statement said: “Based on commercially available models, Plasan’s vehicles are also designed with appearance and anonymity in mind. To the untrained eye, they look like standard vehicles, which means they are suitable for covert use.”
The modified vehicles are in serial production at Plasan. The armour is up to 55 millimetres thick, tested by the IDF, and can withstand two grenades.
The cars have a completely armoured exterior, including armoured doors, pillars, fire walls, fire holes, window frames, hull panels, roofs, floors and engine compartments.
Plasan Re’em says that [quote] “the low visibility operational vehicle is ideal for Special Forces covert operations.”
The vehicle’s “highlights” include a low visibility roll bar which unfolds into a weapons mount.
That is one reason that these roofs are reinforced by Bisalloy’s armoured steel. A standard Toyota is not built to support a machine gun mounted on the roof. The roof would cave in. But Plasan’s modified Toyotas are structurally reinforced by Bisalloy’s armoured steel. Shame!
The “special features” of the car are blackout headlights for ambushing enemies, and also the “tie-down accessories and modified suspension”, making it suitable “for internal transportation within Chinook helicopters.”
These are not the four wheel drives that a boujee soccer mum from Mosman buys when she feels like treating herself. You cannot take a stroll to your local car dealer, buy a pickup truck with a weapons mount and drive it home in your Chinook helicopter.
That is because Australian law regulates who can buy and sell weapons. And these vehicles are defined as weapons. Just like it is illegal to buy a gun, it is illegal to buy parts of a gun – and no, you can’t disassemble the gun into so-called ‘non-lethal parts’.
If Bisalloy exports armoured steel to Israel for Plasan’s armoured vehicles, then they are building a vehicle with a mounted weapon. They are building a killing machine.
In 2022 the so-called Israel Defence magazine reported that a Plasan Re’em Hilux “was involved in the elimination of the terrorist in the recent attack that took place in Kiryat Arba.”
The report said an Israeli man (quote) “attacked the terrorist and ran him over to death.”
Israeli marketing, huh? At least they are direct.
Here’s the thing. Kiryat Arba is an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank. In English, we call it Hebron. In Arabic, it has been called Al-Khalil for a thousand years. Today, the roads in Al Khalil are split into Jewish-only and Palestinian-only sidewalks.
Now, the Israeli government employs and arms its own private militia group, or ‘security coordinators’, in each settlement. Plasan Re’em supplied the settler militias in Al Khalil with 15 Hiluxs, equipped with Bisalloy’s armoured steel, in that year.
If a paramilitary force is stopping you from walking on the road in your own hometown – if that paramilitary is armed by the IDF with armoured vehicles, with Bisalloy armoured steel – then fighting back can not be called terrorism. Resistance is every Palestinian’s right.
And it is our right to resist through protests like this. If this didn’t work, they wouldn’t try to shut us down.
Every few months, my comrades from the Wollongong Friends of Palestine organise a community picket outside Bisalloy. We shut down their factory – which profits from death – for a day, and WE celebrate Palestinian life with live music, with dabke, and with arts and crafts.
Disrupting Bisalloy means less armour for Israel, and that could mean one less armoured IDF vehicle in Gaza, and that means every one of you are saving Palestinian lives right here and right now.
We now know that NSW Police filed a report of a so-called antisemitic ‘hate incident’ from a protest outside Bisalloy. And, of course, police ‘accidentally’ duplicated this report, entering the exact same text four separate times, to juke the stats, and whip up a frenzy of a fake antisemitism crisis. This is what the police report says:
“Police responded to reports of people trespassing at Bisalloy Steel. Two people were found chained by the neck inside a factory building, refusing to cooperate. The protest disrupted operations, causing significant financial impact. Outside the gate, ten additional protestors displayed a sign reading “Armour for Israel is arming a genocide.”
How is this antisemitic? Have I missed the Eleventh Commandment, where God tells the Jews “Thy must provide armoured steel for Israeli genocide”?
No.
Bisalloy is not a synagogue. Jews do not worship at the altar of the military industrial complex. Disrupting the arms trade does not disrupt Jewish religious practice. Thank you