WASHINGTON – The Trump administration has accelerated pressure to sell the F-35 stealth fighter and advanced armed drones to the United Arab Emirates, at a time when the Gulf nation is collaborating with the Trump administration on a historic plan to formalize diplomatic ties with Israel, according to U.S. officials familiar with the talks.
Administration officials have given a classified briefing on the F-35 to the Emirati military in recent weeks – despite some concerns among National Security Council staff about the wisdom of revealing details about one of the most advanced weapons of the Pentagon to a foreign government before a decision on a potential arms sale is completed.
U.S. officials deny that the new drive to sell advanced weapons is a direct reward for the Emirati’s role in a diplomatic breakthrough announced by President Trump last week, where the Emirates would simply become the third Arab nation to recognize Israel. . In return, Israel will stop annexing occupied territory of the West Bank.
But officials do not dispute that the new momentum over arms sales – after years of stagnant requests by the Emirates to buy the fighter jet – is linked to the broader diplomatic initiative.
Such a move could dramatically change the military balance in the Middle East and is likely to meet strong objections from some parts of the Israeli government, which has the jet and warned that the United States is selling the plane to others. peoples in the region. Israel’s army has said such sales could weaken the nation’s strong advantage in the Middle East.
Without the support of the Israeli government, it is unlikely that Congress would support the sale.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vehemently denied that he even gave silent permission for the sale of F-35s as other advanced weapons to the Emirates as part of recent diplomatic negotiations with the White House. He emphasizes that he has consistently and repeatedly pressed the Israeli opposition on any kind of dealings with US officials.
A White House spokesman declined to comment. Yousef al-Otaiba, the ambassador of the Emirates in the United States, declined to comment, according to a spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Washington. Anwar Gargash, the Minister of State of the Emirates for Foreign Affairs, has not mentioned a single armed deal in his heated remarks about the diplomatic agreement with Israel.
Even if the Trump White House announced its intention, the F-35s would take six to eight years and could be undone by a future administration. Many of the top foreign policy advisers to Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic presidential nominee, were officials in the Obama administration and are skeptical about arms sales to the Gulf Arab nations of the Gulf because of the many civilians killed. are by the Saudi-leading coalition in the Yemeni war.
The emirate’s armed deal was pushed through by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who was central to diplomatic negotiations between Israel and the Emirates. Mr Kushner’s efforts over three years to reach a peace agreement between the Israeli government and Palestinians have gone nowhere, and Palestinians have been angered by the Trump administration’s pro-Israel policies. Mr Kushner has hoped to get the Arab leaders of the Gulf, including Emirate Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, to support the Palestinians to support his proposals.
Another top White House official working on the arms deal is Major General Miguel Correa, an army officer who once served as the defense attaché in Abu Dhabi. General Correa is now a senior member of the National Security Council staff working on issues in the Middle East.
The circumstances surrounding General Correa’s departure from Abu Dhabi are dire. Two U.S. officials said he was leaving his post after clashing with embassy chief Steven C. Bondy, who believed General Correa had met with Emirati officials on arms sales, the war in Yemen and others. sensitive subjects without his knowledge or consent.
The Emiratis has been urging the Americans to sell them F-35s for at least six years, but Israeli officials have objected. The war plan is designed to have a very low radar signature, and can strike ground targets and engage in air-to-air combat to maintain control over the skies.
“The F-35 is the single-largest defense system target the Emirates has had in years,” said Barbara A. Leaf, a former U.S. ambassador to the Emirates.
But, she said, with Israel and the Emirates agreeing to full diplomatic relations, the Emirates now expect Israel to abandon some of its traditional technological advantage. “When you make the big move – normalizing relations – you are in a different position than an Arab state,” Ms. Leaf said.
The United Arab Emirates is one of the few traditional allies of the United States that has enjoyed good relations with the Trump administration, and it has found common ground with the White House in taking a Hawkish position toward Iran. . In an interview Wednesday with The Jerusalem Post, David M. Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, said that improving the emirate’s arsenal would be beneficial to the peoples’ allies against Iran.
“Ultimately, both the US and Israel, under the right circumstances, would benefit greatly from having a strong ally across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran,” he said.
Mr. Friedman suggested that any decision on arms sales should be made bearing in mind that the United States’ commitment to Israel has military superiority in the region.
Since the Arab-Israeli War in 1973, American policy has been to ensure that Israel retains what is called a “qualitative military edge” over its Arab neighbors. The month-long interagency process to ensure proposed arms sales meet that requirement is highly classified and involves evaluation by a handful of U.S. officials. Congress’s definition says the United States must ensure that Israel can defeat “any credible conventional military threat” while maintaining “minimal damage and casualties.”
Andrew Miller, a former State Department and National Security Council official now at the Project on Democracy for the Middle East in Washington, said that “the mere fact that UAE makes peace with Israel does not exempt the US” from demands for the military superiority of To preserve Israel.
“Based on my assessment, there are legitimate concerns that the sale of F-35s to the UAE could affect Israel’s qualitative military edge,” he said, adding that the jet could slip through advanced air defense systems.
If the sales process moves forward, the state department would inform Congress. Concerned lawmakers could try to free or kill the sale.
Mr Trump, Mr Kushner and other White House staffers have strongly suggested arms sales to Arab Gulf nations in the Gulf, which has led to one of the biggest wars between the administration and Congress.
Since 2017, lawmakers have been holding on to proposed arms deals to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, calling the thousands of civilians killed by a Saudi-led coalition in the Yemeni war. Many of the civilians died from precision-guided bombing by Raytheon. In a widely criticized move in 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement out of a “need” over Iranian activities in the region to prevent Congress from pushing through $ 8.1 billion in arms to the two nations.
Administration officials discuss whether an important part of the congressional notification process will end in future sales.
In Yemen, the Emirati military, which is much better trained than that of Saudi Arabia, has withdrawn most of its forces. But the Emirates has deployed war plans during the Libyan war, in which many civilians were killed.
White House officials are aiming to make a shepherd a peace deal between Israel and other Arab nations similar to the one reached last week. But there are major obstacles with Saudi Arabia, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other officials would need more robust incentives, say diplomats and experts across the region. Selling key arms packages to the Emirates could help support the Saudis in that direction, they say, because Riyadh also wants to buy advanced American weapons.
The proposed sale of armed drones to the Emirates would almost certainly cause concern among Israeli officials and U.S. lawmakers. The Emiratis is trying to buy Predator drones, made by General Atomics. Lawmakers have packed a pack. But there’s a more powerful drone model, the Reaper, that the Emiratis is also trying to buy, and that’s part of the White House’s proposed arms sales department with the F-35s, made by Lockheed Martin.
Until now, the U.S. government had stopped selling that category of armed drone to other nations because of a ban in the Missile Technology Control Regime, a decades-old arms control pact among 35 nations. But on July 24, the Trump administration announced that it would issue sales permits for those drones and bypass the relevant parts of the arms control agreement. Democratic lawmakers and some weapons control experts said the move was reckless and could lead to proliferation of deadly drone technology.
On Tuesday, an Israeli newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, reported that the Trump administration had secretly agreed to sell F-35s and drones to the Emirates as part of the Emirates peace agreement with Israel.
In response, Mr Netanyahu’s office issued an unusually detailed statement outlining government efforts over the summer to hand over its opposition to the sale of F-35s to any country in the region to Washington. “The peace agreement with the United Arab Emirates does not contain any reference to arms sales, and the US has made it clear that it will always take strict care to maintain Israel’s qualitative edge,” the statement said.
But it did not explicitly deny that the United States had decided to sell F-35s to the Emirates outside the normalization agreement.
The armed issue added a sour note to Israeli celebrations over the diplomatic deal, compounded by statements by Israeli defense and foreign ministers, Mr Coalition’s coalition partners. Netanyahu and political rivals, that they were left in the dark.
Mr Netanyahu’s office said Defense Secretary Benny Gantz, a former chief of staff, was told in late July of communications with U.S. officials who opposed the sale of F-35s.
But Mr Gantz reacted angrily to reports of a secret arms deal, saying at a news conference on Tuesday that he had not been informed in advance of the normalization agreement and that “it is forbidden to take security risks.”
“The F-35 is the most advanced aircraft in the world,” he added. “It is not good for Israel to go wrong elsewhere.”
Some Israeli analysts said citizens were afraid to trust Mr Netanyahu over the issue because of revelations last year that the prime minister had secretly green-lighted the sale of German submarines to Egypt, and a year-long policy that turned against such sale was.
A senior Israeli Air Force officer said a future Emirati government that becomes hostile to Israel could deploy F-35s on it. And the jets’ capabilities could limit Israel’s ability to operate freely in the Persian Gulf – which Israel sees as a critical need because of Iran’s threat.
Isabel Kershner and Ronen Bergman reported from Jerusalem, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.
