Right, so, it seemed that Benjamin Netanyahu assumed Israel’s military superiority was something to be passed down like a hoard of treasure.
Definitely not to be shared. Hardly to be questioned. Certainly not something Saudi Arabia should be allowed anywhere near without first handing him that lovely normalisation deal he’s been after for so long but there’s fat chance of that fairy tale coming true anytime soon.
Israel has been the only state in West Asia in possession of the F-35. Not just operating it either, but enjoying its own specially modified version, because apparently ordinary preferential treatment wasn’t quite preferential enough.
Washington, however, is also knee-deep in this particular mess. Keep the Saudis hooked on American armaments, American training, American software and every overpriced Pentagon contraption bolted onto the thing. Keep Riyadh looking to Washington, rather than Beijing. Keep one of the Gulf’s biggest powers tied into the American military system for years to come. Especially now they are getting a wee bit desperate with regards to getting their oil shipped out and Little Donnie refusing to save them from those man and nasty Houthis.
And, naturally, that procurement process keeps them heading back to the American arms bazaar whenever they need an upgrade.
After all, Donald Trump, who is always in search of opportunities to sell weapons, greenlights a deal to sell the Saudis 48 F-35 jet fighters for $24.3 billion. And of course Israel immediately starts scribbling down a list of compensations faster than a little boy who saw his brother open a bigger, more attractive present.
Yes, the Saudis are apparently being allowed to purchase F-35s and Israel is whining like a little b*tch that it won’t have the biggest and best toys anymore.
Forty-eight F-35s.
Saudi Arabia, suddenly, the first Arab country in line for the world’s allegedly most coveted flying toy.
This is he situation that has got Netanyahu’s eyelids twitching like he’s been overdoing the espresso enemas.
Not because tomorrow the Saudi pilots will be doing a barrel roll over Riyadh-they won’t be. It may be five years before the first one is even delivered to Saudi Arabia.
But Washington opened the door to the car lot, Trump put a tag on the windshield, and Netanyahu realised that his regional, supposedly unique benefit is now on a discount offer to his neighbours.
In response, Israel is asking the United States for compensation, promising to turn over to Israel the most secret and advanced weapons and projects that the U.S. has kept from Israel until now, including bunker-busters, swarms of drones, space-based capabilities, more Arrow interceptors, and a substantial increase in the numbers of its F-15s and F-35s that they get.
Compensation, because nothing will heal a wounded ego like a few billion dollars worth of toys to play with and all because the mere idea of another country buying American military equipment in the Middle East is a mortal wound to Israel. Only several billion dollars of advanced military ointment can possibly make it feel better.
If you listen carefully, you can almost hear almost hear the pleading squeals of the worlds tiniest violins playing under the whining coming from the blue and white apartheid state.
However, Trump was very pleased with himself.
A big plane.
A lovely plane.
The biggest and best plane you ever saw.
Salesmanship, really, worthy of a secondhand car salesman.
The Saudis get a new toy, and Lockheed Martin a whole lot of cash, and Trump can boast about another great deal to anyone who cares to listen.
Those twitching eyelids in Netanyahu’s face may now be fluttering so fast they could power a small machine in and of themselves.
For Israel, the F-35 is not just an aircraft. So far, Israel is the only operator of the fighter in the Middle East, and its own F-35I model contains special Israeli modifications and capabilities that other customers do not get as a matter of course.
Israel not only has the most advanced aircraft in the whole region, but it is also a uniquely protected and privileged station above all the other states in the Middle East. Washington has promised many times that no other country will be able to occupy the same rung.
Equal in no way.
No comparison possible.
Not close enough to make Israel uncomfortable.
And so the F-35 stayed in the market, while Israel, who had been trying for years to get hold of it, is now watching like a spoiled child watching the toy box.
‘You may have one.’
But mine must be better.
And if your toy even vaguely resembles mine, I’ll need three more and perhaps a bunker-buster and a satellite for good measure.
Here's the scale of what America has put forward.
And therein lies the reason for holding on to it.
This is a possible sale worth $24.3 billion, for 48 F-35As, 49 engines, communications, navigation, electronic-warfare support, training, simulators and software.
A whole military zoo, only without any of the cute stuff.
Congress now has 30 days to review this deal, but no aircraft have been delivered, no compensation has been officially announced or approved, and the aircraft have not yet been handed over, they probably won’t be either until around 2030.
The distinction is crucial though, because the consequences of this deal are not that Israel has already lost its military edge. It has not and it won’t for quite some time, if at all. Israel’s reaction is to protest and to demand more arms, while other Gulf states are looking on, awaiting signs as to whether the F-35 door is now open to the highest bidder and could they maybe get some too.
For Saudi Arabia, it is a matter of prestige and status and a deeper tie to the American military machine, where refusals to fight the Houthis, painting targets on Saudi military assets for Iran to hit over Trump’s idiotic war, and all the oil chaos that is still ensuing for the Saudis over both of those fronts, might have made relations a tad frosty of late. The UAE and Turkey, stymied in their attempts to obtain the F-35, are now wondering why Riyadh managed to get back into the program where they were turned down and to my mind, the defensive failures on the part of the US to protect the Saudis may have a part to play in that. And for Iran, it is additional proof that the United States is prepared to pump yet more advanced equipment into a region that is already choked with it and will have no more success frankly in lifting their control of the Strait of Hormuz than anything else has done.
Washington proved, therefore, that Israel’s monopoly is a negotiable thing and that will never do for Israel.
For Netanyahu wanted Saudi access to advanced American weapons tied to something Israel wanted in return, namely Saudi normalisation. That was supposed to be the leverage wasn’t it?
Riyadh wants the F-35; Israel wants to tie the Kingdom to the Abraham Accords. Washington was supposedly using the planes as bait, Netanyahu was to get a diplomatic victory, everyone gets photo opportunities, and Trump has probably already made up a medal for himself.
But in any case, the F-35 sale has already advanced without Saudi Arabia first delivering Netanyahu his precious normalisation.
And all at once Israel’s special status, instead of an inalienable law, seems a commercial contract that Washington would renegotiate whenever someone else arrived with $24.3 billion burning a hole on their pocket.
The State Department declares that none of this will affect the balance of forces in the region, but Israel's reaction has been less easy going.
So the Foreign Office says the sale does not alter the balance of forces.
Israel claims this is of great importance, since it will reduce its advantages in the air.
The United States alleges that these planes will be less advanced.
Anyhow, Israel objected.
Well, which is it?
If the balance sheet does not change, what does Israel need to be compensated for?
If the aircraft of the Arabian kingdom are unable to overcome the existing Israeli superiority, why do Israeli officials supposedly draw up a weapons list long enough to send the shareholders of Lockheed Martin to the champagne cellar?
Washington tries to describe this as a sign of stability.
Interoperability.
Saudi self-defence.
Plenty of diplomatic guff to try and make a $24.3 billion deal sound like an emergency visit to put up some smoke alarms.
Israel’s answer blows that notion apart.
The objector’s protest is not merely directed to what the Saudi plane will be able to do when it is delivered. The objection is letting the Kingdom into the F-35 club.
It’s about monopoly then?
Israel receives planes other governments can’t have. Israel receives privileged financing and special assurances when any other American ally is allowed to buy sophisticated military equipment. Israel gets the aircraft others cannot have. Israel gets modifications others cannot make. Israel gets preferential access, preferential funding and preferential reassurance whenever another American ally is allowed to buy something sophisticated.
Washington even has a respectable little phrase for this sort of arrangement: they call it Israel’s “qualitative military edge”.
Sounds very scientific.
The whole thing sounds like an item in an engineering handbook, not the outcome of a political decision to keep one heavily armed state perpetually ahead of all its neighbours.
Other nations might buy American weapons, but Israel hoped to stay ahead of the game.
Which means that an arms shipment to a certain country can lead to another shipment for Israel.
An old neighbour gets a new plane. Israel demands newer systems.
One of it’s neighbours is strengthening their defences; Israel demands stronger weapons to defeat them.
A neighbour approaches the lowest rung on this ladder and Israel complains that its rung is no longer high enough.
America pays the carpenter.
That is why the Israeli compensation list matters more than all the diplomatic language surrounding it.
Reports say that Israel going to ask for a variety of weapons and programs from the Americans that it hasn’t had so far. Israeli officials are expected to seek access to weapons and programmes that Washington has previously withheld.
They are said to include participation in classified American weapons projects, space or orbital systems, advanced bunker-busting munitions, autonomous strike systems, coordinated drone swarms, further Arrow development, funding for a third F-15 squadron and yet more F-35s.
Israel is basically going through the whole catalogue.
Fighters. Then more fighters.
More missiles.
More interceptors while we’re at it.
Now more drones.
Bunker-busters.
Space systems.
Classified projects.
Someone please stop them before they ask for the Death Star next.
The petition for more arms because jets may be headed to Saudi Arabia within the next several years tells us exactly what Israel’s idea of balance is and it certainly wasn’t to diminish the flow of high-tech weapons into the Middle East.
No, good God! There is a fortune to be made you see.
This means that if someone else receives something dangerous, Israel must receive something even more dangerous to place above it.
An arms race with a frequent flyer card and a loyalty bonus.
So let’s sell forty-eight jet fighters to the Saudis, and then, when we’ve earned enough points, we’ll supply Israel with a new arsenal-collect ten, get a free bunker-buster.
Netanyahu demanded that his supremacy should be assured.
He wanted Saudi access withheld.
To get F-35s, he had to use it to normalise relations.
But the Trump administration has been promoting the sale. And Saudi Arabia has not established normal relations with Israel, and Israeli officials have been asking what the U.S. government could give them to smooth over any hurty feelings.
But that wasn’t what was being decided by Mr Netanyahu.
That’s Netanyahu discovering he isn’t the only customer.
Israel is still the only country in the Middle East that has such aircraft. This snippet of film is useful for that very reason.
Israel’s current lead in F-35s is still firmly in place.
Netanyahu’s fleet is already in operation. Israelis have modified all their planes. Any variant by the Saudis would be restricted, and deliveries won't happen for years.
Netanyahu hasn’t woken up to find 48 Saudi F-35s parked next door.
What has been lost is certainty.
There was the certainty that Israel’s access would be and remain exclusive.
The sure knowledge that, before Washington went any further, Saudi Arabia would have to hand him normalisation.
The surety that Israel’s wishes would be granted precedence over America’s relation to Riyadh, Trump’s enthusiasm for huge sales of armaments, and the readiness of Lockheed to see on the table the sum of $24.3 billion.
Netanyahu wanted superiority. He may still have the military advantage today.
Then they told him the political stability it depends on has been shaken, and his first reaction was to ask the very country that shook it to fix it-well who is he to make such demands of course.
America makes the problem.
The complaint weighed on Israel.
America then sells or subsidises the solution.
The weapon makers are the only ones who profit, which usually goes to show that the people living under all these planes are the ones who are going to suffer.
A report on the transaction circulated in the press claimed it would increase the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's capacity to deter threats, protect itself and operate with the United States.
Fine.
But then Israel’s objection shows that a weapon which is said to be defensive is only regarded as such so long as it can be defeated.
When another state acquires a capability that begins to diminish the gap, the language changes.
Israel's advantage is in danger.
The balance should be restored.
Compensation has to be arranged.
Another package had to be prepared.
And so it goes round.
The more aircraft sold in the name of peace, the more weapons demanded in the name of preserving the balance, the more escalation gets produced.
This is less an insurance policy than a subscription service for perpetual escalation-new weapons delivered to your doorstep every month.
Congress still has its say.
Production is seriously behind.
Saudi Arabia will acquire the first plane only around 2030.
Not this week, not next week.
Not next month.
For some five years, he said.
And yet Israeli authorities are already protesting that their air superiority might be compromised.
The Saudis don’t have a plane.
They have no delivery date set in stone.
They have not even received final approval yet.
But already the Israeli shopping cart was squealing along the aisles of Washington, filled to the brim with the demands of a wounded ego.
If Saudi Arabia is permitted to buy F-35s, then Israel’s exclusive status is no longer absolute.
If the deal goes through without normalisation, Netanyahu’s leverage is much weaker than he imagined.
If Washington can make one exception, other regional partners may wonder what the hefty check might buy them later on.
That’s the crack in the ice Israel is responding to.
Not today, but possibility tomorrow.
The danger for the rest of the world is that Washington’s answer will be to pour yet more armaments into the area to reassure a country already armed to advantage.
When the next escalation occurs, it will not be the Lockheed-Martin officials or the Israeli ministers in Washington or in Tel Aviv who will suffer, but the ordinary people of the region who are already asked to believe that their own security depends on the most advanced bombers, planes, and missiles being directed at someone nearby.
This is the perverse little trick of this arms race: whoever is buying and selling the weapons calls it stability; everyone else bears the consequences.
None of the inhabitants who live beneath these planes has been consulted on this subject.
Nobody ever asks whether stability might mean fewer governments having access to advanced strike capabilities.
Nobody ever asks whether giving people more bunker-busters and autonomous weapons is a rather strange way to restore peace.
The discussion began with the question of supplying 48 aeroplanes to the Saudis, and ended with the subject of how much extra firepower Israel should receive in addition.
It’s like selling petrol, and giving away matches as a bonus-Washington’s idea of fire-prevention.
But then the Israeli officials themselves expressed the real fear at the centre of this.
Israel does not object because it has seen itself surpassed in strength by the House of Saud.
It is objecting because another state may have been permitted to come just a little bit closer.
As for the United States, Netanyahu was relying on Washington to maintain the military dominance of Israel as if it were written in stone. But Washington showed that Saudi Arabia’s access could be negotiated, Israel’s normalisation condition could be circumvented, and the monopoly could be disturbed when a new ally arrived with enough money and a positive story for him to spin some desperately needed brownie points out of.
Netanyahu had expected Israel’s superiority to be cemented, and that Saudi access would be under his protection, and he would require a large political reward from the Arabs for them to get anything to do with a new plane. However, Trump moved the deal forward without granting him this normalisation, almost as if Israel isn’t running the US quite as solidly as it might have thought you might say, thus exposing Israel’s monopoly as just another strategic asset, and causing Israeli officials to go begging to Washington even years before the first Saudi plane ever lands.
Congress may still prevent the sale; the supply to the Saudis still won’t happen for years, and Israel’s demands for compensation have not yet been met and yet the precedent has still been set: when one of the great powers of the Middle East is allowed to get closer to America’s top-grade weapons, Israel responds by asking for the gap to be made even wider. Top be made even more in their benefit, when they have nothing to do with this deal at all.
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