Likud minister: We refuse to sale ‘even one screw’ to UAE
Shafaq News /Likud Minister Tzachi Hanegbi on Tuesday said Israel opposes the sale of “even one screw” of the F-35 fighter jet to any country in the Middle East, including the United Arab Emirates, amid apparent plans by the United States to sell the plane to Abu Dhabi.
“We oppose the sale of even one screw of one plane of the stealth fighters to any country in the Middle East, if we have peace with them or not. That’s our position, and it has been presented in the past and has been clarified in recent weeks,” said Hanegbi, head of the newly created Settlement Affairs Ministry and a longtime ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hanegbi, speaking on Radio 103FM on Tuesday morning, said Israel’s opposition to the US selling the F-35 to the UAE has not changed in light of the normalization plans. He said he believed that even if the F-35 sales go forward despite formal Israeli opposition, the US would find a way to compensate Israel militarily.
“Even if there’s a chance that they won’t accept our position, they’ll find a way to strengthen our advantages, as they’ve done in the past,” he said.
“The Americans are not required to accept our position. They didn’t accept it when they decided to sell the stealth fighters to the Turks, who are not an enemy state, but whom we understand we could have some kind of a conflict with,” Hanegbi said.
Hanegbi, who previously served as minister of regional cooperation, overseeing Israel’s ties to other countries in the Middle East, reiterated that the F-35 sale was not formally part of the normalization agreement with the UAE, but acknowledged that there was a connection between the two.
“This F-35 issue did not come up, as it is, in regards to the agreement between us and the Emirates,” Hanegbi said.
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had spoken publicly of his opposition to the UAE's acquisition of advanced American weapons, which caused the cancellation of the Emirati-Israeli-American talks at the United Nations headquarters recently, according to media sources.
