To convince Israel and its supporters in Congress that the White House truly “has its back” with respect to threats posed by Iran, US President Barack Obama and top Cabinet officials have repeatedly flagged the fact that Israel is the exclusive regional recipient of the F-35, America’s premier stealth strike fighter.
“Indeed, Israel is the only nation in the Middle East to which the United States has sold this fifth-generation aircraft,” Obama wrote in a letter last month to Rep. Jerold Nadler, a New York democrat representing the largest Jewish district in the country.
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Beyond billions of dollars in additional grant aid and a menu of military modernization needs, experts here said Netanyahu should squeeze out definitive assurances that Israel will remain the exclusive regional operator of the F-35 for years to come.
How long?
“Forever,” quipped retired Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad, the Israeli Defense Ministry’s longtime director of policy and political-military affairs who leads QME-related talks with the Pentagon and State Department.
In a Sept. 7 exchange following a conference address here, Gilad refused to say whether a Mideast moratorium on F-35 exports will be an agenda item in bilateral talks on bolstering Israel’s QME. “They said officially that they won’t sell to anybody [in the region] but Israel,” Gilad told Defense News.
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2015/09/12/israel-eyes-exclusive-dibs-on-f-35/
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