| Military Contractors (General) Other military contractors with their own PAC through which they conduct intensive direct lobbying in Mississippi (not mediated through industry chambers) include Huntington Ingalls and its subsidiary Ingalls Shipbuilding; Bollinger Shipyards and its subsidiary VT Halter Marine; and, to a lesser extent, United States Marine, Inc. These companies supply military equipment from Mississippi to Israel directly: in August 2023, Bollinger Shipyards delivered two landing craft vessels to the Israeli Navy, funded by the U.S. Government under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program after a contract signed between the Israeli Ministry of Defense and VT Halter Marine. The delivery ceremony took place at the company’s Pascagoula shipyard in Mississippi with the presence of Israeli Naval Base Commander Tal Politis. Huntington Ingalls has historically manufactured Israel’s Sa’ar 5-class corvettes in Pascagoula; in June 2024, the Israeli Defense Forces’ Navy received a new landing ship also built by Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, United States Marine, Inc., headquartered in Gulfport, Mississippi, has been one of the companies that has benefited from more than $750,000 in FMF to provide material for the IDF. Yusuf Cetiner, “Israeli Navy Receives the INS Nahshon Landing Craft From The US,” Overt Defense, 14 August 2023, www.overtdefense.com/2023/08/14/israeli-navy-receives-the-ins-nahshon-landing-craft-from-the-us.Transportation Research Board, “First Israeli Sa’ar 5 Corvette Launched at Ingalls,” trid.trb.org/View/443958.“Strategic IDF Navy ship ‘Komemiyut’ arrives in Israel,” The News of Israel, www.newsofisrael.com/israel/2024-06-19/idf-navys-new-landing-ship-komemiyut-arrives-in-haifa.Jewish Virtual Library, “State-to-State Cooperation: Mississippi and Israel,” www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/mississippi-israel-cooperation. |
| Business Interests (General) Less direct interests in promoting pro-Israel legislation stem from corporations with a business interest in Israel and activities in Mississippi. These include, primarily, defense contractors such as Airbus, Huntington Ingalls, RTX, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, as well as corporations such as General Motors and Chevron. As seen below, most of these corporations influence legislators by lobbying and making campaign contributions through industry chambers. This makes it difficult to track the involvement and interest of specific companies in this type of legislation, especially considering that many of them are more reliant on federal contracts and legislation and therefore most invested in federal lobbying. However, there may be an active interest in legislation sanctioning the BDS movement at the state level. |
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