“Bromancing” at Yad Vashem

Abstract Diplomacy and the arms trade are no strangers; for many decades, arms have been exchanged as part of the creation of state alliances. The sale of guns, warplanes, knowledge, and, increasingly, (cyber) security technologies is, therefore, a politically embedded endeavor and part of the way states govern themselves. Here, I use the case of Israel and its vast global security industry to study the sale of weapons. I analyze the accompanying diplomatic relations between states as a form of warfare governance. I investigate this “securitized diplomacy” through its security narratives, which are infused with deep racist ideology and which also have a normalizing, legitimizing, and sanitizing effect regarding the industry itself, its weapons and technologies, its violence, and the (international) actors involved.