Israel seeks to increase the size of its military aid
aid as compensation for the UAE’s procurement of F35 jets.
Jerusalem 24 – The Israeli – Emirati peace treaty has had several issues regarding the arming of the United Arab Emirates, where Israel has objected to the sale of American Manufactured F-35 next generation strike aircraft. The Emiratis have been looking towards upgrading their air force with modern weapons and aircraft. The Israelis expressed their concerns about an Arab state acquiring a modern air force, stating that such a force can threaten Israel’s air superiority in the region.
The United States has sold F-35’s to its other allies including Turkey, South Korea as well as Israel. In an online interview with the Atlantic Council, an American think tank, Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said “We have legitimate requests that are there. We ought to get them… the whole idea of a state of belligerency or war with Israel no longer exists.”
Israel Channel 12 had discovered about a year ago, that the Israeli ministry of the army had intervened directly to stop a sale of advanced Israeli military technology to the UAE.however, the latter decided to purchase the technology from the United States instead.It is estimated that Israeli military manufacturers had lost 1.5 billion dollars. Pushing these companies to slam the Israeli government, stating that these restrictions prohibited these companies from contracts worth billions of US dollars.
The Hebrew language News Paper Yediot Ahranot, also uncovered that the security apparatus in Israel is discussing compensation for the arms deals between the US and the UAE. In addition to that Israel may be pushing to call for an increase in America’s military aid to Israel. The Israeli security apparatus has accepted that the sale of advanced military technology to the UAE is inevitable, as such it is working on maintaining Israeli air superiority.
The paper had also pointed out that the Trump administration will work to convince congress to approve the sale of advanced weapon systems to the UAE, based on the recent peace agreement between the UAE and Israel.
