Inside Intel / Camera shy

Security relations between Israel and Russia are continuing to deteriorate.

The first fracture in the relationship occurred after Israel provided weapons systems and military consulting to Georgia.

In the years preceding the war between Russia and Georgia, which ignited in the summer of 2008, president Vladimir Putin's administration expressed criticism of these sales on a number of occasions.

For the most part the Ministry of Defense ignored the Russian requests.

In response the Putin administration has scorned Israel's requests to Russia that they refrain from selling weapons to Iran and Syria.

Israel is particularly worried by Russia's intention to sell Iran advanced air defense missile systems.

This sale has not been removed from the Russian-Iranian agenda.

It is not clear whether there is any connection, but a few months ago the Ministry of Defense made the decision to start halting authorizations of weapons and security equipment exports from Israeli companies to Russia.

The last clampdown applied to sales to Russia of unmanned aircraft and remote-piloted vehicles manufactured by Israeli companies.

Eyes in the sky

The Russian reaction was not long in coming. The Internet newsletter Intelligence Online published recently that Russia had agreed to build a observation satellite for Egypt that will provide it with extremely high-resolution images. The satellite is intended for the Egyptian army and one of the targets of its zooming photography will be Israel.

The tender for the purchase of the satellite was published by the Egyptian government several months ago. A number of European companies submitted bids, among them Astrium, a subsidiary of the European security concern EADS, which is under joint German, British and French ownership.

However, it quickly became clear to Egypt that Astrium intended to install equipment in the satellite that would limit the quality of pictures of Israel to 2.5 meters - that is, only objects at least 2.5 meters in size would be able to be photographed.

Representatives of Astrium explained that this limitation was imposed on them by the government of France.

This was a surprising statement as there is no legal restriction on French companies selling satellite images of even higher resolution.

The protection that France is giving Israel on the Egyptian issue testifies to the strengthening of the security ties between the two countries.

Among other things, there is an agreement on cooperation between the countries to develop and launch satellites.

The idea of imposing resolution restrictions on photographs of sites in Israel is not new.

In 1996 Israel came to an agreement on this matter with the United States.

"The agreement was the outcome of a long process that went on for several years," said its architect, Maj. Gen. (res.) David Ivry, who at the time was director general of the Defense Ministry and is now president of the Boeing company in Israel.

"As distinct from military satellites," he said, "at that time there were very few commercial companies providing satellite photographs. The best picture that could be obtained from them was at a resolution of 10 meters."

Israel wanted to protect itself and prevent Arab countries from acquiring the ability to obtain sharper images.

President Bill Clinton agreed and prevented American companies from selling satellite pictures of sites in Israel at a resolution of less than 2.5 meters.

The American companies did not like the restriction, but they had to accept it. Nonetheless, at their request a provision was introduced that stated explicitly that the prohibition would apply only for as long as pictures of better quality were not sold on the free market.

For its part, Israel reciprocated and restricted the sale of Israeli satellite images. Even more so, this is evident from a lawsuit filed about a year ago in a U.S. court by American shareholders from the ImageSat company, an Israeli commercial satellite company, which is a subsidiary of the Israel Aerospace Industries.

The investors claim that profits have been hurt because IAI, under pressure from the Defense Ministry, forbade the company from selling images to countries that are disapproved by the United States, among them Venezuela and others.

The agreement has held up for a number of years.

"We knew that within a few years the agreement would no longer be meaningful because non-American companies would offer pictures of better quality," Ivry said. "We just wanted to gain time."

Breaking the monopoly

And indeed, control of space by the four major world powers has gradually broken. Steadily, more and more countries have gone into the satellite business and the list is getting longer.

Today commercial companies Israel, Italy, Germany, Korea, China and India are providing pictures from everywhere in the world and with a resolution that is very close to that provided by military satellites, and the possibilities remain open.

But this is not the end of the story.

Whereas up until a few years ago countries that did not have satellite capability had to purchase images form a commercial company, today they aim at purchasing a satellite for themselves, as Egypt is doing.

For the price of a satellite, the country frees itself from dependence on a foreign operator and narrows the possibility that its policy intentions will be leaked (a purchaser of photographs is required to tell the owner of the satellite for what purposes he is asking that pictures be made) and improves the ability to obtain information.

Israel too is trying to penetrate this new market.

Recently the government of Turkey issued a tender for the purchase of a surveillance satellite for its army. IAI, which is a leading manufacturer of satellites in Israel, also entered a bid, but under orders from the Defense Ministry a condition was inserted to the effect that the satellite would not photograph Israel.

Turkey rejected the condition and gave the contract to Italy.