Notes On Normalization and That Sale of F-35s

by Hugh Fitzgerald

Here are some developments connected to the announcement of the agreement between the UAE and Israel to “normalize” relations

1. Someone in the Emirates – a proud parent, perhaps? – has posted a video of a young Emirati girl playing the Israeli national anthem, “Hatikva.” It is being interpreted hopefully – by both Emiratis and Israelis (who have been) as a symbol of human sympathy that transcends past conflict, even perhaps signs of a budding romance between two peoples, the Arabs of the UAE and the Jews in Israel. A little thing, but it’s the sum of these little things that creates the right atmospherics for people-to-people reconciliation.

2. Another video has gone viral in the Emirates. It shows two Israeli soldiers on the Temple Mount. One of them spots several Palestinians who have defaced, and are stomping on, a cloth with an image of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. He walks over, quickly takes the image from the Palestinians, and walks away with it for safekeeping elsewhere.

This incident – no more than ten seconds of infantile indecency by grinning stomping Palestinians, followed by no-nonsense decency from an unsmiling Israeli — received considerable favorable comment from Emiratis. One of them is a prominent cleric and media personality in the United Arab Emirates, Dr. Wassem Yousef, who often appears on television. In a tweet, he praised the Israeli soldier who prevented Palestinian demonstrators from stomping on an image of the Crown Prince on the Temple Mount. He included a video of the Israeli soldier quickly pulling the cloth up from the ground and walking away with it. In text accompanying the video Wassem Yousef wrote, “The manners of this Jew is [sic] more honorable than you, because you are without honor.”

Over a second video of the Palestinians stomping on the image, Yousef wrote, “This filthy morals [sic], you do not really deserve Jerusalem — most of you work in Israel and you are asking the Arabs to boycott Israel — the truth is you are without morals. The Jews are more honorable than you.”

Over a third video, which showed the Israeli and Emirati flags flying next to each other in Israel, Yousef said, “Israel raises the flags of the Emirates in the city of Netanya, and some Palestinians are burning the flag of my country.”

A recognition, albeit awkwardly expressed – the “manners of this Jew is more honorable than you, because you are without honor” is not exactly how one wishes it had been put – is welcome, and so is Wassem Yousef’s gratefully taking note of Israelis flying the Emirates flag in Netanya.

These are vignettes – the young Emirati girl picking out the Hatikvah, the Crown Prince’s image swiftly rescued from Palestinian defacement by an Israeli soldier – that are the building blocks of normalization between not governments, but peoples. There is an old English saying that applies here: “Many a little makes a muckle.”

3. A third news item from the Emirates, as some Israelis said, both raised and dashed some hopes. The UAE’s Minister of Foreign Affairs,, Anwar Gargash, promised in a speech that the peace with Israel would be a “warm peace,” as “unlike Jordan and Egypt, we have not fought with Israel.” That was the raising-hopes part of his speech, though exactly what that “warm peace” will consist of remains to be seen. But in the same breath, Gargash said that the UAE would place its embassy in Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem.

Some Israelis expressed disappointment. Should hopes really have been dashed by that announcement? Could anyone have believed that the UAE would place its embassy in Jerusalem, when only two countries in the world – the U.S. and brave little Guatemala – have done so? Could the UAE have done what the U.K., Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy and dozens of other countries — though they have long been allies of Israel — still have not done? Of course, it would have been sensational if the UAE had announced it was going to place its Embassy in “West Jerusalem” in the expectation that “our Embassy in the future Palestinian state will also be in Jerusalem – East Jerusalem.” But no one should reasonably have expected it.

4. Then there is Israel’s worry about the possible sale of F-35 airplanes to the UAE by the American government. Having cancelled the sale of F-35s to Turkey, the U.S. now has extra planes to sell. And the UAE has been trying for several years to buy these top-of-the-line Stealth fighters. The sale was apparently arranged by Jared Kushner, with the State Department and the Pentagon left out of the loop. It was a side agreement, not part of the normalization understanding. Many Israeli military men are deeply concerned that such a sale will threaten Israel’s security.

Some civilians in Israel do not agree. The Jerusalem Post writers are among them. The paper ran an editorial on August 19 insisting that there was nothing to be alarmed about. Here is some of that editorial:

The deal with the UAE is good – even very good. It formalizes a relationship between one of the Mideast’s richest nations with its leading technological one. It shows that the Arab world is no longer willing to be held hostage by Palestinian rejectionism and unrealistically maximalist demands. It sends a chilling message to Iran that two of its most formidable foes have joined forces. And it opens the door to other Arab countries interested in following the Emirates’ lead.

But imagine you are the leader of Bahrain, sitting in Manama reading about the brouhaha in Israel over the likelihood that the agreement includes a clause allowing the UAE to buy the F-35s, and that Jerusalem is vowing to fight the sale of the planes. As Bahrain’s ruler, you could be excused for thinking: What’s with these people? Do I really want to deal with them?

Why should Israel’s refusal to drop its objection to a sale of F-35s to the UAE make Bahrain unwilling to normalize relations with Israel? Israel’s promise to suspend its annexation plans is already quite enough of a concession to the UAE. Allowing the UAE to acquire F-35s is a concession too many, and would break, Israel’s generals fear, the longstanding American commitment to maintaining Israel’s technological edge in weapons.

The Jerusalem Post editorial continues:

In a normal world, the prime minister – on the verge of signing an important accord with an Arab state – would bring the top security brass into the decision-making process, and together they would evaluate it from every possible security angle, including the likelihood that the UAE will get access to top-notch US military hardware.

They would then do a cost-benefit analysis. In all likelihood, that analysis would conclude that normalization of ties with a key Persian Gulf state that might acquire the F-35s within the decade is much better than no ties with one not in possession of those planes. Israel has more to gain from normalization than it has to lose if those planes reach the UAE.

Apparently the military men have performed that cost-benefit analysis, judging by their deep concern, and unlike the Jerusalem Post journalists, they reject the hypothetical choice that the JP offers: either the UAE must be allowed to have those F-35s, if it is to go through with normalization, or if it is denied the purchase of the F-35s, it will refuse to go through with normalization. The JP editorial claims the choice for Israel is stark: “a Persian Gulf state that might acquire the F-35s within the decade” is preferable to “no ties [for Israel] with one [Persian Gulf state] not in possession of those planes.”

The JP editorial writers betray how little faith they have in the UAE, even as they claim the opposite, if they think the Emirates would refuse any “normalization” agreement if it were not also guaranteed the right to buy a squadron of F-35s. That F-35 sale was not part of the original agreement; the Israelis have been unpleasantly surprised to discover that Jared Kushner made this side agreement with the UAE But in the view of the Jerusalem Post, there’s no need to worry. The UAE is Israel’s BFF, and nothing will ever change that.

The Jerusalem Post’s jejune reasoning continues:

Because those jets are not meant to be used against Israel but, rather, against Iran, our common enemy. Israel has never been at war with the UAE, and – barring unforeseen circumstances and a coup that brings radical Islamic elements to power there – is unlikely to be anytime soon. True, strategic planners need to factor in even unforeseen circumstances, but those possible future developments – if their risks are low – need not paralyze Jerusalem.

The problem is that this cost-risk analysis at the level of the country’s top security echelon never took place, because Netanyahu did not want to bring Gantz into the loop. In other words, Israeli political infighting prevented a proper decision-making process, and the lack of that proper process is currently being debated domestically in view of the entire world.

“These jets are not meant to be used against Israel but, rather, against Iran…”: Oh, that’s okay then. Those F-35s are “not meant to be used” against Israel. Jerusalem Post, let’s get real. The Middle East is the least stable region in the world. Remember that under the Shah Iran bought enormous quantities of advanced American arms, but there was apparently no need to worry, for as Jimmy Carter said, in toasting the Shah in 1977, the year before he fell, Iran was “an island of stability.” Khomeini’s regime inherited all those weapons; those that are not obsolescent are still targeting Israel.

Should Israel bet its future on the UAE remaining BFFs with the Jewish state? Should the Jewish state rule out entirely the possibility of a coup, a change of policy, a change of heart in Abu Dhabi? Isn’t it true that Iran under the Shah had good relations with Israel, before it overnight became, under Khomeini, its mortal enemy? And isn’t it also true that before Erdogan arrived to undo Kemalism at home, and to reconfigure alliances abroad, Turkey had for decades been an ally of Israel and, just as with Iran, Turkey went from being an ally to being Israel’s enemy? Should Israel take a chance, and wager its national security on the assumption, with the ink scarcely dry on the normalization agreement, that the UAE will never change its policy toward the Jewish state? What happened to the longstanding American assurance, repeated by Trump to Netanyahu in 2017, that it would always “preserve Israel’s qualitative military edge”?

The JP editorial concludes:

Everyone is watching: The US, shocked that Israelis cannot graciously take “yes” for an answer; the UAE, flabbergasted that Israel is now making this into an issue; and other Arab countries, wondering what hiccups await them if they normalize ties with the Jewish state, a country with this seemingly bizarre knack of spinning gold into straw.

It’s not a “yes” that Israel is refusing to take, but the “no” that would supposedly be given by the UAE to the normalization agreement if it is not allowed to buy F-35 fighter jets. The UAE would not be “flabbergasted” if Israel were “now to make this into an issue” because the sale of the F-35s was never part of the normalization agreement. And it’s not the Arab states who have “hiccups” awaiting them “if they normalize ties with the Jewish state” but, rather, Israel that is enduring a good deal more than “hiccups” along the way – it’s been taken aback by the American government’s proposed sale of large numbers of F-35 fighter jets to the U.A.E, which, if it goes through, would definitely undermine that promise to “preserve Israel’s qualitative military edge.”

The F-35 sale to the UAE should be opposed by Israel and all those who support it. It’s a terrible idea. Amos Gilad, the former head of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s political-military affairs bureau, wrote in the leading daily Yedioth Ahronoth on August 20 that “Israel must never forget, not even for an split second, that any dent in its strength is liable to pull the rug out from under its feet in the long term. It is imperative that Israel prevent the sale of F-35 planes to any country in the Middle East and that it reserves its capabilities and similar ones for itself.”

As for the Jerusalem Post editorial writers who think the sale of F-35s to the UAE is a swell idea, and can’t see why nervous nellies (which is how they have the chutzpah to depict those sober Israeli military men warning against the sale) are so worried, their piece could have appeared as an editorial in the UAE’s English-language newspaper, The National – without needing to change a single word.