Posted on 06/14/2005 7:23:46 PM PDT by datura
Tuesday, June 14, 2005 The Bush administration has begun to block arms shipments to Israel and suspend joint programs after the two allies failed to resolve a dispute over arms sales to China.
U.S. officials said the Defense Department and Israeli representatives were unable to draft a memorandum of understanding that would halt Israeli weapons sales to China. They said the two sides could not agree on a supervision mechanism for Israeli arms exports.
Israel has agreed to increase government supervision of arms exports, the long-held turf of the Defense Ministry, Middle East Newsline reported. But officials said the Israeli delegation refused to accept U.S. demands for increased access to Israeli negotiations with foreign militaries. The countries were said to have included India and Singapore, two leading clients of Israel's defense industry.
"This is certainly an issue that is being discussed between the United States and Israel, and we have made our concerns about the sale and transfer of defense equipment and technology to China known to Israel," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said on Monday.
Whitman refused to confirm a report by the Israeli daily Haaretz that the administration has demanded details of more than 60 military and security deals with China. He also did not address the Pentagon boycott of senior Israeli defense officials.
"We continue also to raise concerns with our allies, our friends and partners and look for them to take responsible approaches to arms sales to China, too," Whitman said. "This is broader than just Israel."
The failure to draft the MoU appeared to have heightened the crisis between the Pentagon and Israel's Defense Ministry. The Pentagon has boycotted high level meetings with Israeli officials since July 2004 in wake of Israel's efforts to upgrade the Harpy unmanned aerial vehicle for China.
Since then, the Pentagon has embarked on a process of escalating sanctions. They included the suspension of Israeli participation in the Joint Strike Fighter program.
Officials said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sought to resolve the crisis during his visit to the United States in late May. They said a week after Sharon's return, the United States informed Israel that it had been suspended from the JSF program.
In 2005, the administration began holding up arms deliveries to Israel, such as night-vision systems, and delayed a scheduled strategic cooperation session. Officials said the U.S. Army has stopped relaying information on a project to develop the Hunter-2 UAV, based on an Israeli-supplied platform. Northrop Grumman has been the prime contractor of the project for the U.S. Army.
The Pentagon has also refused to engage with three Israeli defense officials. They were identified as Defense Ministry director-general Amos Yaron, head of the ministry's New York-based procurement division Yekutiel Mor, and Sibat arms export chief Yossi Ben-Hanan. These officials were said to have been responsible for Israel's defense relationship with China.
Israeli defense sources said the Defense Ministry has responded to all of the Pentagon requests and still envisions an MoU by August 2005. But they acknowledged ministry opposition to the U.S. demands for increased transparency of arms deals and the dismissal of the three officials.
"The Defense Ministry is holding discreet and pertinent talks with the United States to solve the misunderstandings, which it does not believe need to make public," an Israeli Defense Ministry statement said.
Hard to support someone who is selling you out at the same time - with your own equipment. And we're not talking about small time deals here. Israel is the #2 supplier of weapons to China - behind only Russia - so don't play this off as nit picking.
Agreed. I support Israel on nearly everything. But not this.
Because of all these Free Traitor agreements, China has the US by balls and is slowly squeezing more and more. And Americans who complain about Israel rightfully so should make sure they dont buy any Chinese goods, because where do think China is getting the money to buy these weapons. After all it is just FREE TRADE!
Ditto.
Same, if Israel wants us to be on board, cutting off China militarily has to be a prerequisite.
ping
Bump!
bump
We don't need to have Israel living near the top of our technology chain if they're going to sell us out. Likewise, I disagree with the provisions of the Camp David Accord which sells Egypt the Abrams tank (much less landed my butt in Sinai for 6 months).
The jury is still out on what Clinton sold the ChiComs - hopefully it was all technically flawed stuff that couldn't be reverse engineered to work, but I doubt that.
Same goes for the P-3 Orion "transfer" at the start of this administration.
Bottom line: US Military procurement MUST come from VERIFIED US Sources ONLY. No front companies, no offshore parents, etc. If that means some of the new conglomerates have to divest some of their new treasures, so be it.
Maybe our Gov't should try to resolve the attack on the USS Liberty.
Why did the Navy accept the Israeli version of events with total faith, and reject what the attacked had to say?
Name another major incident at sea involving a US ship that wasn't investigated by Congress.
If WT is accurate, it's only because they're repeating some other news souce that is accurate.
Objecting to Israel selling arms to China is not anti-Semitism.
The problem has been reported in many other papers for some time and it has been going on for years, I read somewhere that there are some 60 incidents, where Israel sold high tech weapons to China, a couple of time the US really got on their case, but apparently they kept right at it, ignoring us.
Bulls^it,this is bogus.
China’s much more dependent on the US/Taiwan/Japan than visa-versa on a multitude levels. I wouldn’t want to trade places.
Trade with China benefits both the CCP and reformists. Israeli arms shipments only benefit the CCP. That’s the difference.
>>Maybe our Gov't should try to resolve the attack on the USS Liberty.
Why did the Navy accept the Israeli version of events with total faith, and reject what the attacked had to say?
Name another major incident at sea involving a US ship that wasn't investigated by Congress.<<
This is a rhetorical question, right? Israel is sacrosanct, you must not question or risk being branded an anti-semitic.
Flame away...........
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