Reports that the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation declined to renew Easy Aerial’s lease because the company sells drones to Israel are false, it told JNS.
The corporation “notified Easy Aerial at the beginning of the year that it would not renew its lease agreement for business reasons related to operational and campus compliance matters,” it said. “Like any landlord, we evaluate renewals based on adherence to lease terms and campus policies.”
“There were no other factors in our decision,” it told JNS.
An anti-Israel group called Demilitarize Brooklyn Navy Yard said it had written to elected officials and picketed the Navy Yard weekly as a result of its business with the Jewish state. In news reports and on social media, it celebrated the corporation’s decision not to renew the lease on social media.
Brooklyn Navy Yard is a 300-acre, city-owned industrial park on the waterfront in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Easy Aerial designs and manufactures “drone-in-a-box” systems for defense, security and industrial inspection. The company has supplied products to Israeli defense and security agencies, according to its co-founder, Ido Gur, who is Israeli.
Lincoln Restler, a New York City Council member, stated that the Brooklyn Navy Yard made the right decision by not renewing the lease.
“This public asset should not be leasing space to companies producing drones that are being transformed into weapons of war,” he wrote.
