An agreement to establish diplomatic relations with Israel should make it “easier” for the United Arab Emirates to win approval to purchase American-made F-35 fighter jets, according to the Gulf nation’s top diplomat.
“We ought to get them,” UAE Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash said Thursday during an Atlantic Council event. “And now the whole idea of a state of belligerency or war with Israel will no longer exist, so I think it should actually be more easier.”
Gargash advanced that argument in the wake of reports that last week’s UAE-Israel deal included a secret agreement that Israel would acquiesce to such a sale. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his opposition to the UAE’s purchase of the cutting-edge stealth fighter jet, but President Trump acknowledged this week that the arms deal is “under review,” even as Gargash maintained that it was “not connected” to their decision to establish ties with Israel.
“The UAE already has indicated that it wants this F-35, I think the first time was six years ago, so this is something on the table,” he said. “Many of our requests in terms of defense, etc., are requests that precede this deal. They are not connected to this deal.”
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and point-man for many of the administration’s high-profile initiatives in the Middle East, reportedly has been pushing to approve the sale in recent weeks.
“They’ve definitely got the money to pay for it,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “So, yeah, they’d like to buy F-35s; we’ll see what happens. It’s under review, but they made a great — a great advance in peace in the Middle East.”
Israel has 24 F-35 fighter jets in operation as part of a contract that ultimately provides the Jewish state with a total of 50 of the warplanes. U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman maintained that any additional arms sales to the UAE would be authorized in a way that maintained Israels’s qualitative military edge over its neighbors.
He suggested some link, at least retroactively, between the deal and the fighter sales.
“The QME process will kick in as it has before, and all the relevant factors will be considered, including, I would assume, the improved relations between the UAE and Israel,” Friedman told the Jerusalem Post.
Friedman also argued that it’s “inane” for Israeli critics to resist such developments.
“The logical extension of the argument is that Israel should never make peace with anyone because once its adversary becomes an ally, it might get stronger,” he said. “I just don’t buy it. People should want to make peace with Israel so that they become stronger as a result!”
Gargash said that he doesn’t understand the Israeli position against the sales. “I don’t know how much of it is domestic Israeli politics,” he said. “The UAE expects that its requirements will be accepted. And we feel that with the signing of this peace treaty … that any hurdle towards this [F-35 sale] should no longer be there.”
[Also read: UAE: ‘Several Arab countries’ on the path to normalization with Israel]
