Was F-35 Stealth Jet Sale to Arab UAE at heart of deal with Israel and
Trump? Did Netanyahu Lie?
JUAN COLE
08/20/2020
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Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) - Only a week after the breathless announcement
of the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) recognition of Israel, the two newlyweds
are already having their first spat.
On Wednesday, Matthew Lee of AP reports, Trump broached the sale of Lockheed
Martin F-35 Lightning II Stealth fighter jets to the UAE. Trump said, "They
have the money and they would like to order quite a few F-35s. It's the
greatest fighter jet in the world, as you know, by stealth, totally stealth.
. They'd like to buy F-35s, we'll see what happens. It's under review, but
they made a great advance in peace in the Middle East."
The secretary of defense, Mark Esper, was formerly the vice president of the
F-35 sustainment program at Lockheed Martin. One F-35 retails for roughly
$100 million.
BBC Monitoring translates a report in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot
that alleges a high UAE official told its correspondent that "The aircraft
are part of the deal." That is, an arms deal was part of the agreement
between the two countries, and that the US would sell Abu Dhabi F-35s was
openly specified.
So the United Arab Emirates made the treaty with Israel not to bring peace
to the Middle East but to ensure that it is armed to the teeth. The UAE has
a citizen population of only about a million (plus 8 million guest workers),
so it is the Rhode Island of the Middle East. The country has enormous oil
wealth, however, and has used it to begin asserting itself throughout the
region, from Libya to Yemen. It joined Saudi Arabia in an air war on the
Shiite Houthi rebels of Yemen, and Abu Dhabi clearly sees its sophisticated
fighter jets as one key to regional dominance.
The UAE fancies itself rather like Frederick the Great (1740-1786) of
Prussia, who wrote an essay on "Enlightened Absolutism." It opposes
grassroots, populist Muslim movements, both the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood and
Shiite Khomeinism in Iran, in favor of secular-minded right wing
authoritarianism from the top down.
Israel has a policy of attempting to maintain arms superiority in the Middle
East, which the UAE is on the cusp of overturning.
The Yediot Aharanoth report, if true, indicates that Israeli prime minister
Binyamin Netanyahu signed off on a deal that would give an Arab country
F-35s, but hid the fact from his own government.
The same newspaper reports that when the news broke, Netanyahu suddenly
feigned ignorance and said that if the F-35 deal for his new BFFs in the
Gulf came before Congress, he would oppose it.
Netanyahu is prime minister in a national unity government and has a
supposed close partner in defense minister Benny Gantz.
BBC Monitoring translates Mati Tuchfeld in Yisrael Hayom as writing that
Gantz is furious because he had been kept in the dark about the UAE deal
while he was at the Tel Hashomer hospital for treatment. On being released,
he immediately held a press conference in which he complained that the
agreement with Abu Dhabi had been concealed from him, and he was not told
anything about a sale of F-35s. Gantz was quoted that such a sale "would not
be good for Israel."
So maybe the big announcement last week should really go this way. The UAE
was bribed with F-35s and other sophisticated weapons to recognize Israel.
Trump and Esper made Lockheed Martin happy, ensuring campaign dollars for
Trump's reelection, and Esper did well by his old company and colleagues.
Netanyahu winked at this erosion of Israeli military dominance, hiding this
dimension of the deal from his own minister of defense and security
apparatus, so that he could claim the recognition as a breakthrough for his
personal diplomacy and charisma. Netanyahu is under indictment and he may
betray Gantz by going to new elections and campaigning on having gotten
further recognition from the Arabs.
There weren't any backs in this story that weren't stabbed, especially those
of the Palestinians.
