Washington — Leaders in Washington and Jerusalem have publicly locked horns over the issue of West Bank settlements. And Israeli public opinion has largely viewed America’s new administration as unfriendly. But behind the scenes, strategic security relations between the two countries are flourishing.
Israeli officials have been singing the praises of President Obama for his willingness to address their defense concerns and for actions taken by his administration to bolster Israel’s qualitative military edge — an edge eroded, according to Israel, during the final year of the George W. Bush presidency.
Among the new initiatives taken by the administration, the Forward has learned, are adjustments in a massive arms deal the Bush administration made with Arab Gulf states in response to Israeli concerns. There have also been upgrades in U.S.-Israeli military cooperation on missile defense. And a deal is expected next year that will see one of the United States’ most advanced fighter jets go to Israel with some of America’s most sensitive new technology.
Amid the cacophony of U.S.-Israel clashes on the diplomatic front, public attention given to this intensified strategic cooperation has been scant. But in a rare public comment in October, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren praised the Obama administration’s response to complaints about lost ground during the close of the Bush years as “warm and immediate.”
“We came to the Obama administration and said, ‘Listen, we have a problem here,’” Oren, told a gathering of the National Jewish Democratic Council. “The administration’s reaction was immediate: we are going to address this issue, we are going to make sure that we maintain your QME [qualitative military edge].”
The warmth seems to stand in contrast to public opinion in Israel, which, according to a recent survey, is highly critical of Obama, seeing him as weak and naive. Bush is perceived as having been a much stronger ally.
But when the new administration settled in, it faced entreaties from Jerusalem to redress what Israeli officials saw as an erosion on the strategic side during the last stage of Bush’s tenure.
The Israelis cited Arab progress in replacing old Soviet weapons with new Western arms, and advances in the operational technology of weapons that has made Israel’s investment in human skills less significant.
But Jerusalem’s concerns, well-informed Israeli sources say, were also stoked by a massive $20 billion arms deal that the United States signed with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states during the Bush administration’s last year. In its attempt to counter Iran’s military buildup and nuclear ambitions, the former administration approved an arms contract that included upgrades of the Gulf countries’ air and naval capabilities, as well as advanced missile defense systems and modern satellite-guided bombs.
Israel, which sees Iran as its prime enemy in the region, initially accepted the Bush strategists’ rationale for the huge arms transfer. Jerusalem voiced only mild concern regarding some of the specifics, mainly the supply of precision bombs.
But in recent months, Israeli defense officials visiting Washington stepped up complaints about the Saudi deal. To the newly installed Obama administration officials, the Israelis argued that the usage and deployment of these arms breached earlier understandings and could tilt the military balance against Israel.
These complaints were met with what one Israeli diplomat called a “receptiveness” that was demonstrated in the new administration’s willingness to adjust the arms deployments to mitigate Israel’s concerns.
A former senior security official in the Bush administration said Bush’s guidance to all levels was to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge. The ex-official, who would speak only on background, added that the arms sales to Gulf countries were done in light of the Arab world’s anxiety over Iran’s ambitions. “We saw it as a positive for all sides,” he said, adding Israel had no complaints against it “on the strategic level.”
According to Steve Rosen, a former lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who is now a private consultant, the Obama administration, and especially the Pentagon, is now more open to supplying Israel with cutting-edge technology in an attempt to ensure Israel’s confidence and possibly steer Jerusalem away from the idea of attacking Iran. “In an effort to give Israel a larger margin of safety, the U.S. is releasing technology that under other circumstances would have been seen as more sensitive,” he said.
The United States and Israel have also recently launched a new consultative mechanism for discussing and addressing issues relating to Israel’s qualitative military edge. This new process, involving key officials from the Pentagon and State Department on the American side and Israel’s Foreign and Defense ministries, is currently being applied to several outstanding Israeli concerns. Israeli defense officials and pro-Israel activists characterize this as a significant development in strategic consultations between the two countries.
America’s commitment to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge was codified directly into U.S. law via 2008 legislation backed by AIPAC. This legislation requires the president to report to Congress periodically on actions taken by the administration to ensure Israel’s advantage. A spokeswoman for the House Foreign Affairs Committee told the Forward that the White House provided its first report to Congress this past summer. The report was classified, and no information regarding its content has been released.
Long before the 2008 law, the Reagan administration promised that America would ensure Israel’s military advantage over its neighbors. And succeeding presidents have maintained this commitment. The commitment defined Israel’s strategic advantage as the difference between Israel’s military capabilities compared with each one of its Arab adversaries or with the combination of all adversaries.
“Originally, it was Israel’s way to overcome its numeric inferiority,” said Guy Ben-Ari, deputy director of the defense-industrial initiatives group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He explained that the notion has been held up by both sides, despite the fact that Israel’s main military challenges — confronting terrorism and Iran’s nuclear threat — are not issues determined by the size of its military. The Israelis stressed that what happened during the close of Bush’s tenure was an erosion of Israeli’s military edge, not a breach of the Reagan era commitment.
Beyond correcting the perceived imbalance that developed under Bush, Israeli officials have also praised the Obama administration for increasing cooperation about missile defense. A November joint American-Israeli exercise, codenamed Juniper Cobra, was the largest and most extensive missile defense dry run ever held, and involved 1,400 American servicemen simulating responses to a possible attack against Israel. “The size and the high profile [of the exercise] are a signal from the administration about its commitment to Israel’s security,” an Israeli diplomat said.
Another deal that is highly anticipated in Israel is the expected sale of the advanced F-35 fighter jets to Israel’s air force. The Pentagon has offered Israel a unique version of the radar-evading future aircraft for supply in 2015. A deal is expected to be signed early next year.
Still, Israeli officials and American lobbyists stressed that not all outstanding issues have been resolved. Supporters of Israel are now pushing for the administration and Congress to limit American arms sales to Lebanon because of the re-emergence of Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon on Israel’s northern border, and the failure of the central government in Beirut to disarm the group. Pro-Israel lobbyists cite their concern that American weapons might fall into the hands of Hezbollah, which is backed by Israel’s avowed enemy, Iran.
Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com
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Its Too Bad We cant Deliver the F35`s Today !!!!!!! I heard a report the "weapons" We use against the "little horn of persia' will Astound the World!!! Let Us All Pray So !!!
"Blessed be the peacemakers . . . " I haven't seen many lately; how about you?
In response to Jacob, peacemakers are indeed blessed, but peace at any price is worse than war. Until, the Palestinians accept the existence of Israel and agree to live in peace with with it, there isn't much peacemakers can do.
"... and involved 1,400 American servicemen simulating responses to a possible attack against Israel."
IIRC, the US and Israel have never signed a mutual defense treaty. Therefore, US personnel are in no way obligated to defend Israel in case of attack.
Anti-Semites get their material from stuff like this.
Disgusting that we are once again turning over our top tech weapons to Israel, who has already proved herself quite willing to sell it to the highest bidder. Far from ensuring "Israel’s confidence and possibly steer Jerusalem away from the idea of attacking Iran," Israel will use it to once again murderously assault any one of her neighbors.
That the President is now obligated by law "to report to Congress periodically on actions taken by the administration to ensure Israel’s advantage" shows only how we have now become a vassal to the so-called Jewish State, better seen as an anachronism of primitive tribalism.
Grif, I wonder if you also call Saudi Arabia, Syria, the Gulf States or Iran an anachronism of primitive tribalism? Or is your anger about what you name as the "so-called Jewish State" and does it betray something else?
Hey, "Grif":
Maybe when Israel's neighbors recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state - something no more remarkable than Russia recognizing Poland as a Polish state or Turkey recognizing Greece as a Greek state - and stop murderously assualting Israeli civilians with indiscriminate rocket fire and suicide bombers, then Israel won't have to defend herself.
The only difference between Israel and the U.S. is that for Israel, Afghanistan is right next door. We bomb ragtag Al Queda and Taliban guerrilas with B-52 bombers half a world away, who haven't touched a hair on the head of one American civilian since 2001, but Israel "murderously assualts her neighbors". You are so full of crap, Grif.
Obama may be well-intentioned, but they are trying to please everybody and will wind up pleasing no one..and selling Israel down the river in the process. They don't want Israel to hit Iran, and Obama himself shrinks from doing so thus far, due to the obvious serious costs and risks. But these pale before those associated with a nuclear armed Iran. If the mullahs of Teheran acquire one nuke, then no one - including Israel - will dare take the risk of stopping them militarily. From there, if the mullahs stay in power long enough to field an arsenal of say, 30 nukes, they WILL attack Israel, and in the ensuing exchange, the whole region will be destroyed. Conservatively, we can expect prompt deaths - i.e., in the first few hours - to approach 40 million, and in the first month, they will easily exceed 100 million due to residual effects. The whole region will be set back 2000 years.
Even if the Iranians don't attack outright, due to short flight times, Israel will be forced to adopt a hair-trigger "launch on warning" posture. This means that if an Israeli radar operator so much as sneezes on his radar scope and mistakes the spittle for incoming warheads, a cataclysm will result.
In short, we can either pay a lot now....or a LOT MORE later!
Iran is a midget acting like a giant, and we enable them. The sacrifices involved in stopping them in a resolute manner would not even begin to approach those of WW2; the risks of not doing so means disaster beyond history.
The first thing you learn from studying history...is that nobody ever learns from history.
Eli:
I most certainly would call Saudi Arabia the same. Iran is far more pluralist than SA and as is clear by recent events is struggling to throw off the yoke. So stop with the asinine insinuations of anti-Semitism, which plays like a tired old record everytime someone is pissed off at Israel.
The 1947 UNGA Resolution 181 Partition Plan referred specifically to a Jewish State and and Arab (not Palestinian) state being created side by side in Mandatory Palestine. So the term "Jewish state" was very specifically and purposely used back in 1947. Now "Jewish@ does not mean a religious state, but refers to the people who come out of JUDEA, which was what the land was called in Roman times.
And yes, Israel always has been the victim. It was attacked in 1948. It was attacked by JOrdan in 1967, forcing Israel to enter and take the so-called "West Bank" away from the Jordanian army. At any case, "Jewish state" refers to the sovereign state of the Jewish people, just as Irish state is the sovereign state of the Irish people, and Greece the sovereign state of the Greek people, and so on. Yes, there is a Jewish tribal religion of the Jewish people, just as the Navajos and other tribes have their tribal religions. But the Jewish religion is only for members of the Jewish tribe, which occasionally takes foreigners into the tribe just as many other tribes do. But Judaism, unlike Christianity and Islam, is NOT a universal religion. It is a particular unique religion of a particular small group of people. Nor does it claim to be the only true religion, or seek to proselytize and gain new members.
I think it's quite strange that the US has made itself legally responsible for keeping Israel's military the buff machine that it already is.
I also think it's quite strange that Israelis, and the country's supporters in the US, aren't upset that the primary reason Israel's military must keep upgrading to maintain the capacity to kill everyone in the region simultaneously is that the US keeps selling weapons to everyone else in the region.
Israel's military expenditures amount to about 8% of the country's GDP, not counting the $2 billion plus in annual US military aid (which might more profitably be spent on other programs). As the story notes, the Israeli government's current concerns were sparked by a $20 billion US arms deal with the Saudis, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
At the same time as the US announced that deal, in late 2007, the Brits announced a $20 billion deal to sell a bunch of Eurofighter Typhoons to the Saudis, which is probably why Israel wants the F-35s (actually they want F-22s but the US isn't willing to sell those yet).
So in essence the peace-loving democratic peoples of the West, primarily the US, are driving Israel's military spending, or a good chunk of it. And the steroidal military budget is responsible in part for the squeeze on Israel's social welfare programs. So the US is screwing Israeli citizens. Some friends.
As an item of interest: BAE, the giant British weapons firm, is building the Saudi Eurofighters at the same time as it is Lockheed's major partner in the F-35, providing major components of the airframe along with the weapons systems and much of the electronics. So they're making billions from dealing on both sides of the aisle. Life is good.
The State of 'palestine' quiz:
1.) When was the country 'palestine' founded and by whom?
2.) What were its borders?
3.) What was its capital?
4.) What were its major cities?
5.) Name at least 1 'palestinian leader' before Arafat
6.) What is the language of the 'Country of palestine'?
7.) What was the prevalent religion of the 'ancient country of palestine'?
8.) What was is currency?
9.) Take any date in history and say what the exchange rate for 'palestinian' unit is againt the dollar, yen, yuan, mark, or pound on that date.
10.) Since there is no 'palestine' today what caused its demise and when?
11.) Why did the 'palestinians' never try to become independent until after the devastating defeat of invading Arab states in the 1967 Six Day War?
What happens when a fly falls into a coffee cup?
The Italian-throws the cup and walks away in a fit of rage. The Frenchman-takes out the fly, and drinks the coffee.
The Chinese - eats the fly and throws away the coffee. The Russian - Drinks the coffee with the fly, since it was extra with no charge.
The Israeli - sells the coffee to the Frenchman, the fly to the Chinese, buys himself a new cup of coffee and uses the extra money to invent a device that prevents flies from falling into coffee.
The Palestinian - blames the Israeli for the fly falling in his coffee, protests the act of aggression to the UN, takes a loan from the European Union to buy a new cup of coffee, uses the money to purchase explosives and then blows up the coffee house where the Italian, the Frenchman, the Chinese, and the Russian are all trying to explain to the Israeli that he should give away his cup of coffee to the Palestinians