F-35 JSF Qatar
Israeli Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen, 11 October 2020 said his country would oppose the sale of US F-35 fighter jets to Qatar. Cohen commented on the Israeli Army Radio when asked about a Reuters report that Qatar had made a formal request to Washington to buy F-35 fighter jets. "The answer is yes. Our security and military superiority in the region is of utmost importance to us. Our territory still hasn't changed to Switzerland, ”said Cohen when asked if Israel would oppose the sale. Reuters reported that Qatar's request for F-35 fighter jets was a follow-up to the deal between the US and the United Arab Emirates in August. Washington agreed to consider agreeing a Gulf nation to buy the F-35 in another deal on the "Abraham Accord."
One of Reuters's sources told the news outlet that the proposal did not include a provision indicating that Qatar would join the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords, a landmark agreement signed by Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) earlier this year normalizing relations between the two countries.
Qatar began to explore replacements for its Mirage 2000 fleet in 2010. The likely replacement would either be a 4th or 5th generation aircraft, but only one aircraft would be selected. It was reported that Qatar could require from 24 to 40 aircraft in total and these totals are for a single aircraft, not acquisition of equal numbers of both.
According to the Hebrew-language daily Maariv in May 2016, Washington had confirmed to Tel Aviv that this type of aircraft “will be exclusively allocated for Israel in the Middle East.” The newspaper further said Israeli authorities are wary of the fact the sale of F-35 military aircraft to Arab countries would chip away at the “technological superiority of Israel in the region.” There are reports that Washington is mulling the sale of fifth-generation F-35 aircraft to Qatar and Kuwait. US military officials have already announced that they will maintain a quality gap in favor of Israel in such a case.
Qatar, host of the largest US military facility in the Middle East, has been locked in a dispute with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt since 2017. The quartet’s blockade of Qatar severed diplomatic, economic and transport ties as they accused Qatar of supporting “terrorism”. Qatar vehemently denies all allegations.
The United States hoped to move ahead with plans to name Qatar as a major, non-NATO ally, a status that provides foreign nations with benefits in defence trade and security cooperation with Washington, a senior US official said 17 September 2020. “We’re going to move ahead, we hope, with designating Qatar a major non-NATO ally,” Timothy Lenderking, the US deputy assistant secretary of state for Gulf affairs, told reporters. Major non-NATO ally (or MNNA) status gives a country preferential access to US military equipment and technology, including free surplus material, expedited export processing and prioritised cooperation on training. News of a potential MNNA designation for Qatar comes after two Gulf states – Bahrain and the UAE – signed normalisation agreements with Israel that were brokered by the US.
"Qatar’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey and Iran already make it more a problem than a partner for the United States and our regional allies – including Israel – and should disqualify Doha from buying the world’s most advanced combat aircraft," Jonathan Ruhe, Director of Foreign Policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), and Ari Cicurel, a foreign policy analyst at JINSA, wrote for the Jerusalem Post on 17 October 2020.
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