US brings Israel to its knees over arms sales

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By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
June 20, 2005

Israel Sunday caved to intense Bush Administration pressure over its arms sales to China, agreeing to US demands that officials believed would cripple the Jewish state's military industry.

Washington had in recent weeks imposed sanctions on Israel, suspending its participation in joint military development projects and the blocking the delivery of essential battlefield systems, after it learned Jerusalem had sold Harpy Killer unmanned drones to China.

The Pentagon had originally demanded Israel fire several senior defense officials involved in the sale, a condition Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuval Steinitz called ?illegitimate? and ?humiliating.?

According to Yediot Ahronot, under the deal Israel was pressured to accept, Defense Ministry director-general Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yaron and the head of the ministry's security, Yehiel Horev, would be forced into retirement.

In addition, America would oversee all of Israel's future arms sales to foreign militaries.

?This is an unprecedented demand,? a senior security source told the newspaper. ?This way, the caliber of Israel's weapons industry cannot function.?

?No country will want a third nation to know every detail about its weapons, especially not formally,? the source said.

Steinitz suggested last week that the crisis over the arms sale was more about promoting the US military industry by stemming competition than heading off any real threat to American security interests.

He also insisted there must be ?reciprocity in [Israel's] relations? with Washington.

The United States continues to sell advanced weaponry to Arab nations still officially at war with Israel, as well as hostile neighbors such as Egypt, which pose an existential threat to the Jewish state.

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