House Democrats introduced a bill on Friday to restrict arms sales to countries in the Middle East. The legislation comes after the Trump administration informally notified Congress of its intent to sell the UAE 50 F-35 fighter jets, worth approximately $10.4 billion.
Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, introduced the legislation along with 10 other lawmakers. “It’s up to Congress to consider the ramifications of allowing new partners to purchase the F-35 and other advanced systems,” Engel said in a statement announcing the bill.
The bill is the latest in a round of legislation introduced in Congress to protect Israel’s military superiority over its neighbors, known as the Qualitative Military Edge (QME). A similar bill was introduced in the Senate last week.
“We need to know that such weapons will be used properly and in a way aligned with our security interests, which include protecting Israel’s qualitative military edge and ensuring adversaries can’t get their hands on American technology,” Engel said.
Engel’s bill outlines conditions necessary to sell F-35s and other advanced equipment to countries in the Middle East that are not Israel. One condition is that the recipient country has to have signed an agreement to normalize relations with Israel like the UAE did in September.
The bill would also require the weapons to be modified to ensure Israel “is able to identify, locate, and continually track the weapons and that the recipient country will not alter such modifications.” Other requirements include ensuring the weapons are not stolen or do not end up in the hands of non-state actors in the region.
Despite the concerns in Congress, the Israelis signed off on the arms sale to the UAE after securing a guarantee from Secretary of Defense Mark Esper last week that the US will provide Israel with new weapons in exchange. Discussing the potential F-35 sale with reporters on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he received strong assurances about “the American commitment to preserve Israel’s military qualitative edge.”
Congress is already mandated by US law to uphold Israel’s QME. Since rumors of the F-35 sale to Abu Dhabi began to surface, US lawmakers have introduced a few bills concerning Israel’s QME. Earlier in October, a group of bipartisan lawmakers introduced a bill that would essentially give the State of Israel veto powers over US arms sales to the Middle East.
So, they have to have trackers enabled to insure Israel can track them. American politicians being owned by Israel is the greatest national security threat facing the American nation.
The same people who want to put trackers into stealth aircraft pretend to confusion that Turkey does not want the American AA missiles when the threat is of Israeli air attacks.
If you just read the headline you’d probably feel pretty good that there is pushback to our lethal weapons yard sale. But then you read the article and you want to puke.
Do not accuse Rep. Engel of dual-loyalty; he has one loyal–Israel.
ps: he kinda of reminds me of Borat.
No such bills are necessary to stop arms sales to India. It has already rejected Esper’s offer of Reaper drones to combat a little difficulty on India’s northern border.
Ha Israel tells you all you need to know.
I can’t imagine those things aren’t sold without a kill switch. In any case would the UAE maintain their own planes? Pull the Western techs and mechanics and they can fly one or two missions and then they are on the ground. Seems like this is more about demonstrating loyalty to Israel than any actual threat.