PARIS—Heven AeroTech, a maker of hydrogen-powered drones, is often called Israel’s first defense tech unicorn, the term for a privately held company valued at more than $1 billion. But when I walked up to Heven’s exhibit at the Eurosatory arms show last month and asked where the company was based, the representative at the booth cheerfully replied, “Dulles, Virginia.”
This was accurate, since Heven opened its new headquarters in the United States last year. But embracing its American identity at the arms show had an unspoken benefit: The company avoided the fate of nearby Israeli exhibitors, many of which were literally walled off from the main floor—part of an ongoing dispute between France and Israel over the latter’s military operations in Gaza and Lebanon.
PARIS—Heven AeroTech, a maker of hydrogen-powered drones, is often called Israel’s first defense tech unicorn, the term for a privately held company valued at more than $1 billion. But when I walked up to Heven’s exhibit at the Eurosatory arms show last month and asked where the company was based, the representative at the booth cheerfully replied, “Dulles, Virginia.”
This was accurate, since Heven opened its new headquarters in the United States last year. But embracing its American identity at the arms show had an unspoken benefit: The company avoided the fate of nearby Israeli exhibitors, many of which were literally walled off from the main floor—part of an ongoing dispute between France and Israel over the latter’s military operations in Gaza and Lebanon.
The Eurosatory controversy underscored a growing paradox. International criticism of Israel’s wars has complicated the marketing of Israeli weapons, but it has done little to diminish global demand for them. At the same time, France’s decision to barricade off Israeli companies at an arms show risked turning a legitimate debate about military conflicts into a bizarre spectacle.
The French government informed Israel prior to the arms show that government representatives could not attend and that Israeli companies could not display offensive weaponry, a seemingly looser sanction than in 2024, when France banned Israeli companies from participating at all. (French courts later ruled that move discriminatory.) However, shortly before this year’s Eurosatory opened, French officials inspected booths to ensure that Israeli companies had complied and were apparently unsatisfied. The show’s organizers erected barriers around many of the displays.
Responding to questions from Foreign Policy, the French defense ministry said it had been clear to Israel that exhibits were to be “limited to hardware and equipment related to air defense and anti-missile defense.” Explaining its policy, the ministry condemned Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack but cited concerns about Israel’s military operations in Gaza and Lebanon as well as extremist settler violence in the West Bank.
“In support of a political resolution to conflicts, we do not export arms liable to be used by Israel in Gaza, the West Bank, or Lebanon, and we cannot accept the promotion of such arms on national soil,” the defense ministry said.
The French restrictions sparked immediate outcry from Israel, which accused France of unjustly targeting “Israeli offensive defense systems.” The turn of phrase highlights, if nothing else, how difficult it can be to distinguish between offensive and defensive weapons: One man’s missile is another’s defense against drones.
Some defense companies founded by Israeli entrepreneurs, such as Heven, escaped the controversy because they now identify as American. Shifters, a robotics company headquartered in Washington, D.C., displayed at Eurosatory without any obvious indication of its Israeli origins. Next door to the walled-off Israeli exhibits, attendees drank champagne and wine at a bar inside the stall of Ondas, a U.S. company that has bought more than half a dozen Israeli drone-related firms with technology that was prominently displayed at the show.
“The real truth is everyone’s trying to look and feel and smell and taste like they’re American,” one venture capital investor told me in a call after the show. The investor asked not to be identified because he had received threats related to his investments in Israel.
For those outside the defense business, it might be hard to imagine that an arms show is a place where certain types of weapons are shunned. Such events have long mixed guns, business, and war—and there is typically no better sales pitch than being able to say that one’s weapons are combat-proven. More than 80 Ukrainian companies came out in force at Eurosatory with slogans such as “Independence is earned, not granted” and “Love at first strike.”
One of the more prominent exhibits belonged to the Ukrainian company Fire Point, which was holding a “daily rocket aperitivo” at its stall, where it displayed a bright pink mock-up of its ground-launched “Flamingo” cruise missile. A flamingo plush toy holding a missile sat atop the model.
European governments see Ukraine as fighting a righteous war, but that’s not as much the case for Israel. Its military operations in Lebanon, as well as in Gaza—where the death toll has now surpassed 70,000, according to local health authorities—have sparked widespread outrage. Canada, France, Italy, and Spain have all restricted arms deals and cooperation with Israel. Even in the United States, a staunch ally, public support for Israel is slipping, and some politicians are calling for reforming the bilateral relationship.
Publicly, Israeli companies tend to dismiss political blowback, but the industry is clearly adapting. Many of Israel’s new defense tech start-ups are choosing to register in the United States, essentially shedding their Israeli identity. “Everyone hires a president of the Americas, and before you know it, he or she loses the Americas part of their title,” the investor said. “It’s that sophomoric.”
It’s not just the growing unpopularity of Israel’s military operations that is pushing its defense companies to look abroad. The trend of Israeli tech start-ups toward incorporating in the United States dates to 2023, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition pushed judicial reforms that provoked concerns about the rule of law in Israel. Critics warned that the reforms could undermine intellectual property rights, rattle foreign investors, and send the booming Israeli tech sector abroad.
“A lot of companies were afraid of the situation in Israel,” said Gidi Shalom Bendor, the founder and CEO of Israel-based S Cube, which advises start-ups. “More than 80 percent at that time registered as a Delaware company.”
That trend has slowed since the height of the judicial crisis, though, and established Israeli defense companies are quick to point out that sales abroad are still strong. Israel’s defense exports have quadrupled over the last decade, and the Israeli Defense Ministry recently announced a record-setting $19.2 billion in arms exports for 2025, almost one-third more than the previous year.
Tomer Malchi, the CEO of Israel-based ASIO Technologies, which makes navigation systems for drones, said his company has not had any problems with foreign sales. “Asia is really interested in Israeli tech, and we are having very great interaction and business from Asian countries, which [don’t] care about the local politics or the American politics or European politics,” Malchi said. “They just want to get a good product that they can rely on.”
Even in Europe, Malchi added, the company is seeing strong interest, particularly among NATO members on the alliance’s eastern flank. Those countries, “are much more concerned about building capabilities, independence, and resilience than politics,” he said.
Boaz Levy, the head of the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), expressed frustration over the French actions at Eurosatory, but he also didn’t think it was a major problem. IAI was among the Israeli companies that were not walled off at the arms show, but its display was relatively spare.
“We don’t like it,” he said when I spoke to him after the show. “Even more than that, we reject this kind of behavior, but business is a business, and we came to Paris to meet our allies and to meet many companies and customers, and we did it.”
