Here’s Why Israel Doesn’t Want The UAE Acquiring F-35s

Despite its recent formalization of ties with the United Arab Emirates, Israel still opposes any U.S. sale of fifth-generation F-35 Lightning II jet fighters to Abu Dhabi.

“To begin with, the prime minister opposed selling the F-35 and advanced weaponry to any countries in the Middle East, including Arab states that make peace with Israel,” read a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on August 18.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East to field this advanced aircraft. With Turkey’s suspension from the F-35 program for buying Russian S-400 missiles, it could well remain so for the foreseeable future. 

Israeli opposition to Emirati F-35s doesn’t mean that the Jewish state opposes all U.S. arms sales to Abu Dhabi.

David Friedman, the incumbent U.S. Ambassador to Israel, has already suggested that friendly relations between Israel and the UAE “obviously alters the threat assessment and could work out to the Emiratis benefit” regarding future arms sales.

Israel might well sell the UAE drones in the near future. Israeli-built drones have already been exported to various countries including Azerbaijan, India, and Turkey.

For decades the U.S. has maintained a delicate balance in which it sells arms to Arab states while simultaneously ensuring the Israel military does not lose its Qualitative Military Edge (QME) over them. In the early 1980s, Israel feared the Reagan administration was compromising its QME by selling Saudi Arabia advanced E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) planes and lobbied against it, ultimately in vain. 

Today, Israel’s outlook toward the wider region has largely changed. In its early years, Israel’s primary adversaries were the Arab states. As a result, it courted friendly ties and alliances with Turkey and the Shah’s Iran. In the intervening years, this alliance of the periphery has transformed into something more closely resembling a de-facto alliance of the center, with Israel forging covert ties with the Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf and now public relations with the UAE.

This is because Iran and its proxies in Iraq and Syria are of much more serious concern to Israel. Consequently, the Israelis showed little concern in recent decades about the growing military power of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, both of which have predominantly U.S.-equipped militaries. It arguably even views these two countries as bulwarks between it and Tehran.

However, Israel draws the line when it comes to these countries operating an aircraft as advanced and sophisticated as the F-35, which will most likely remain the premier fifth-generation fighter in the world for years to come.

U.S. refusal to sell such an advanced fighter jet to any Arab country often generates allegations of hypocrisy from the Arabs. 

Egypt could soon face U.S. sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) federal law for its recent $2.5 billion purchase of advanced 4.5 generation Su-35 fighter jets from Russia to further modernize its mostly U.S.-equipped air force. Egyptian F-16s, for example, are less advanced than their Israeli counterparts and are not even armed with long-range AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles.

Maj. Gen. Naser Salem, former head of the Egyptian army’s reconnaissance department, recently told Al-Monitor that the Egyptian military wants modern hardware to keep up with the Israeli military and rhetorically asked: “Why doesn’t the U.S. supply Egypt with F-35 fighters that it supplied Israel with, since it is objecting to the Russian Su-35 fighters deal?”

The UAE has already indicated it would turn elsewhere for fifth-generation fighters so long as the U.S. refuses to sell it F-35s.

In 2017, Russia and the UAE reached an agreement to jointly develop a fifth-generation fighter jet reportedly based on the MiG-29. The project’s progress, or lack thereof, is unclear three years later. More recently, Moscow also suggested that Abu Dhabi could help it develop the fifth-generation Su-57.

The U.S. would most likely oppose such an arrangement since it could constitute a significant boon to the Russian defense sector and might even make it easier for Moscow to build and field its own fifth-generation fighters, a process it has found incredibly difficult and expensive to date. This doesn’t mean, however, that Washington would reconsider its refusal to sell the Emiratis F-35s.

The UAE is a major U.S. ally in the Middle East and a significant buyer of U.S. military hardware. It even earned the nickname ‘Little Sparta’ from U.S. defense officials for its substantial role as a junior partner of the U.S. military in the region. Also, the CIA doesn’t even spy on the small Arab nation, underscoring Washington’s trust in Abu Dhabi. 

Despite all this, the U.S. still opposes one of its main Arab allies acquiring a weapons system that could challenge the Israeli military’s technological superiority over that volatile region.