Is Trump eyeing to sell F-35 jets to the UAE in the wake of Arab state's peace deal with Israel?
The political dynamics of the Middle East witnessed a key moment last week when Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced the normalization of their ties, something the Arab world has rarely seen. Only Egypt and Jordan have set up normal ties with the Jewish state because of its clashes with the Palestine people but with the prospects of a separate Palestinian state diminishing in recent years, relations in the region have seen new possibilities.
However, while many have predicted a bright future of the Israel-UAE peace pact, reports about the deal’s details have given birth to apprehension for the Israeli side as well. They have suggested that the US-brokered peace talks included an agreement that would allow the UAE to buy advanced weaponry from America. Especially the F-35 stealth jets and state-of-the-art attack drones.
According to a report in The New York Times published Wednesday, August 19, President Donald Trump is keen to have lucrative weapons deals with Abu Dhabi and his plans are being facilitated by his senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who looks after the administration’s Middle East policy. The F-35 stealth jets and the attack drones, namely the Predator and Reaper, are mainly aimed under the deals. Former US ambassador to the UAE Barbara Leaf was quoted by the Times as saying: “The F-35 has been the single-biggest defense system objective the Emiratis have had for years.” She added that the UAE will be expecting pay-off from the normalization. “If you’re making the big move—normalization of relations—you’re in a different position as an Arab state,” Leaf added.
UAE getting F-35s might make Israel nervous
This is something that would not make Israel too assured even though the Benjamin Netanyahu leadership has said that Israel remains committed to having a qualitative military edge over its regional neighbors, irrespective of normalization. As per Newsweek, Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has F-35 jets -- considered the most advanced in the world. Israel ordered a total of 75 jets and in 2018, it became the first in the world to use them in combat. The sale of F-35 planes to the UAE and any other Middle East country that decides to normalize relations with Israel next could be a concern for lawmakers in both Israel and the US. In the US, any sale deal has to go through Congress and it has already put an effort by the Emirates to buy the Predator drones, the NYT report added.
However, the Israelis could take solace from the fact that the US might not sell to the UAE the exact models that it has given to them. In a report, Newsweek said that the US often sells less potent versions of its own weapons to foreign buyers and the Netanyahu government might put pressure to see the UAE acquire F-35s that are less potent than theirs.
“It's about the avionics—what they come with,” Yossi Mekelberg of the British Chatham House think tank and Regent's University in London was quoted as saying by Newsweek. “It’s a bit like when you buy a car, what specifications you have in the car.” The Israelis have also developed their own avionics to be used in jets and drones and the UAE has no such access. It is less likely that the UAE will be able to buy or field the same number of F-35s as like the Israelis even if they get them. “The UAE is a small country with a relatively small military capacity,” Mekelberg said, adding: “It’s not going to change the military balance.”
Yet, the rumors of the UAE getting the advanced jets from the US could see some repercussions in Israel’s domestic politics with his coalition partner and Defense Minister Benny Gantz using it to undermine him.