Defense independence impossible without the US - opinion
| Published date | 08 March 2024 |
| Author | YAAKOV KATZ |
| Publication title | Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel) |
Until then, France had been Israel's main defense ally. The IDF flew Mirage fighter jets; jointly developed missiles with Dassault; and even the Dimona nuclear reactor had its beginnings in France.
His boycott lit the spark that turned Israel into the military-technological superpower that it is today and helped make it one of the world's top 10 weapons exporters with annual sales reaching $12 billion. What De Gaulle did was teach Israel an important lesson: to survive, the Jewish State could not rely solely on foreign assistance. It needed to find a way to develop its own R&D and production capabilities. De Gaulle taught us that this was a matter of survival.
Developing new weapons and munitions
Over the last few months, mostly in discussions behind closed doors in the Israeli Defense Ministry, the French embargo has again come up. Defense Ministry Director General Eyal Zamir and his staff have been working closely with local Israeli defense companies, discussing opening new production lines for certain weapons and munitions, including building new factories as needed.
The systems that Israel wants to be able to manufacture independently vary. There are air-to-ground bombs, assault rifles, guidance systems for munitions, and even simpler products such as tactical helmets and protective vests, of which so many were missing in the first weeks of the war.
This is a smart move that is long overdue, but people should not get ahead of themselves as some did this week when celebrating the announcement of the new line of assault rifles. (It seems that they thought Israel was renewing the Lavi project, the famed Israeli fighter jet from the 1980s that was shut down due to pressure from the United States and not just a newer version of the M-16.)
And while it is true that Israel can create some measure of independence, it is not to the level that some people expect, especially when it comes to the United States.
The reason is simple: The IDF's reliance on US military platforms is not just an assault rifle and a one-ton explosive ordinance. When looking at the IDF today, software, cyberware, radars, sensors, drones, tanks, armored personnel carriers, and much more are developed and manufactured in Israel.
Yet about half the procurement of weaponry takes place outside of Israel. Almost every aircraft flown by the Israel Air Force (IAF) is American-made. This includes F-15s, F-16s, F-35s, Apache helicopters...
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