Israeli company that fenced in Gaza wants to build Trump’s wall

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2016/08/08/israeli-company-that-fenced-in-gaza-wants-to-build-trumps-wall/

DCNF

Magal Security Systems Ltd. made its name by building Israel’s fence around the Gaza Strip, and now the company sees a potential business opportunity by helping build Republican nominee Donald Trump’s proposed wall on the U.S-Mexico border.

CEO Saar Koursh is unabashedly interested in Trump’s proposal to build a wall along the 2,000 mile U.S.-Mexican border. A Trump presidency could be an extremely lucrative opportunity for the successful business.

“We would join forces with a major U.S. defense company that has experience with such projects worldwide,” Koursh told Bloomberg in an interview. “We’ve done it in the past and we would definitely want to do it.”

Koursh’s company is anything but your basic construction contractor. Magal outfits its “smart fences” with cameras, ground sensors, satellite monitoring capabilities and motion detectors. The decision to build the fence around Gaza has been controversial, but that has not affected the company’s profitability. Shares in the company’s Nasdaq affiliate, American Depositary Receipts, have risen a remarkable 23 percent in 2016 alone.

“The border business was down, but then came ISIS and the Syrian conflict,” said Koursh, referring to Islamic State. “The world is changing and borders are coming back big-time.”

Trump has not changed his rhetoric regarding the proposed border wall since he first put forward the idea early in his campaign last year. The Platform Committee of the Republican Party has backed the idea, and it quietly passed through committee at the Republican National Committee in Cleveland that same month.

The Trump wall would be the second major contract the company bids for in less than a year, should the Republican nominee be elected. Magal has also made presentations to the government of Kenya, which intends to build a 425-mile security perimeter on its border with Somalia in an apparent effort to keep out al-Shabaab terrorists.

“We put a smart fence around the entire Gaza Strip,” said Koursh during an interview last month. “Anybody can give you a very nice Powerpoint, but few can show you such a complex project as Gaza that is constantly battle-tested.”

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