Israel to purchase 20 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets

It's still not certain whether the UK will buy any since the Americans decided to go back on their word regarding the F-35's source code. Plan B is a navalised version of the Typhoon.

Cost and feasibility studies are currently being conducted...

Well, if you ask nicely, Turkey may offer to repair them for you... ;-) Oh, and we are paying for ours out of our own pocket, all 120 of them!!

The US knows this and agrees. The US in the end will mirror the Israeli systems as they usually do as they tend to be superior to US technology.

and open up a history book, the only attempts at Ethic cleansing in the region was done by the Arabs in 1948 and 1967. What's happening in the West Bank and Jerusalem isnt ethnic cleansing it's simple gentrification. It happens in every country

Israel is being helped with military aid. That's why the U.S. began giving Israel military aid after the 1973 war. There is no ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, dimbulb. The only time Jerusalem was ethnically cleansed was from 1948-67 when all Jews were kicked out. The Arab population of Jerusalem is GROWING, not shrinking. Collective punishment is the result of starting a war from your own territory. You don't want your people to suffer? Don't launch attacks from among them. You need a change your mind from being a halfwit campaign.

The "aid" - only to be used for the purchase of US military equipment - comes from the American people. Then Israel pays the US military industry with this money. It's a clever way for the military to profit.

Ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem? Why don't you go look up the definition. No one is being exterminated or prevented from procreating. Israel is a state under siege by enemies intent on its destruction. What would you do if your neighbor started tossing grenades through your window 5 days a week? You would do something to make it more difficult. Israel doesn't NEED aid from the US. Aid from the US is largely symbolic that we support Israel's right to exist as a free, democratic, JEWISH state.

i think usa doesn't need israel anymore.

So much about good and evil black and white. You live in a Disney world.

Israael's shortcoming is they do not build airplane engines for their military aircraft. The weapn systems they produce are on par with anything the US produces. In fact, the US has stopped agreements on AWAC's and tanks the defense establishment produces in Israel as it would outcompete with the US establishment. If the US would let Israel compete with no strings attached Israel could earn lots of bucks and design their own engine systems. Remember, they have the Jericho III which can put a sattelite in orbit... So in the end, US support enables the US's defense establishment to survive. It's all about money

why should we turn off AL jazeera? because its telling the world the truth and whats really going on in that part of the world?is telling the truth hurt ? isreal donut want any body to know the truth i see how it is

...don't need more weapons,.theyt need Diplomacy

BS, as usual

Tell them to leave occupied land and let their neighbor Palestinians to live in peace!

natallie durson=tony silver-labhras=osama... all one in the same. stupid is as stupid does

They will be shot down by S-300's

In fact the F35 suffers from serious problems at least at the moment. Then again, I would not call the the next generation fighter, it really indicates that is much better than it is. Its a good plane, but only so for the convenience of the pilot, but can it escape the anti air weapons that are hanging around today, I would say no. I am someone that knows that......oh by the ways the price is not $150m per plane, it is more likely to be around $70m, mostly inflated due to delays.

NO it can't reach iran without refueling or carrying drop tanks and if we want to carry those it comes at the expense of stealth which is the only thing Israel really wants from F35. It has smaller fuel tanks than even the standard F16 not just the F16I which has bigger tanks. It can't carry as many missiles as F16 because its all got to go internally we can't carry them under the wings and under the belly of the plane which you do with G4 planes. it won't have any Israeli electronics it will be the standard off the shelf export model, You can buy 5 F16s for the price of 1 F35. Its not a dogfighter like F16. The US will not let us make repairs to our own planes if we have a problem it has to be sent back to Lockheed Martin so what happens if we are in a war the plane is damaged as we are not allowed to make repairs the US hasn't sold us any spare parts and you can't send a plane away for repairs in the middle of a war so the plane is grounded not fighting which is what we bought it for. The arabs will eventually buy the export F35, Turkey us building the whole plane under license and it will be equipped with anything Turkey wants to put on it so they will have a superior plane than us. Any commitments give to Barak about future planes having Israeli systems aboard means nothing because decisions like that are not binding if a future adminstration decides they don't want to abide by that promise given to Barak they are within their rights to say you want more planes your going to get more off the shelf we are not going to allow you to instal any of your own systems. Its also not designed to carry Israeli designed missiles so we will not be buying Israeli missiles, we will not be paying Israeli companies to instal Israeli electronics so it cost Israeli companies alot of business and if even the IAF is not using Israeli electronics and missiles then the companies won't invest in further development of them so it means we won't have a product that we can export to others who are not buying F35. THIS PLANE IS A LOOSE LOOSE DEAL FOR ISRAEL AND WE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN BULLIED INTO BUYING IT.

The least letting the guards down by Israel would be a catastrophe . And now , since Arabs and Iran openly in the face of the whole world threatens Israel , with no real reasons for it , Israel must have decisive capabilities to smash any of their vile attempts .

israel needs long range bombers and AC 135 refueling capability. Israel needs the capability to take out the Iranian nuclear menace.

for americans, unlike useless "stimulus money" that did not stimulate anything, and unlike externded unemployement benefits that stimulated people to stay longer on the unemployement.

...."To pay for Israeli wars" Ah ! you mean the American,worthless wars in Irak & in Afghanistan. I told them long long ago don't step into the quagmire, They didn't listen. But had they listened countless lives would have been saved on both sides.Next time,listen to what I say. Yes, Pita !?

IMHO I don't know how many NEW jobs in the aero industry, plus all the million manufacturers, parts people all the way down to the paint sold for the planes, it's all A LOT JOBS FOR A LOT OF WORKERS and companies-American companies (possibly some Chinese?)...AND BY THE WAY, doesn't Israel pay for these directly and also gets credits cause they add their own technologies and trade them with us? ....very complicated deal I imagine, but is it transparent.

That the pre positioned weapons are not gratis. It is a use pay. If ISrel uses all of them, then the entire prices comes out of tehir defence allotment for the next fiscal year. Mostly bombs and artillery shells in it anyway. Artillery shells are produced by SIrael and used at a horendsous rate in war. So having a few thousands extra is noce to have. So dont get your shorts in a knot, and next time research teh subject better before saying you are in teh know, cause you arent.

yes, probably will be paid by American taxpayers with monies given to us ONLY to be spent in arms purchase in the USA. In other words, a subsidy for the arms industry, a word forbidden under the capitalistic approach and the republicans ethos

yes, probably will be paid by American taxpayers with monies given to us ONLY to be spent in arms purchase in the USA. In other words, a subsidy for the arms industry, a word forbidden under the capitalistic approach and the republicans ethos

Most Americans support current levels of exchange with Israel. You're in the minority, poor thing.

The public doesn't know this but you do !!!

trust me we will and we are writing our congress and you asked why here so we can tell you how we feel about it and thats we donut like it at all and time to put an end to it

Adequate life style and financial security for thousands of Americans. And to add sugar to the cake, it protects Israel from a genocide. Win for everybody.

The US is bankrupt because it loans billiosn of dolalrs to private compnaies whose fiscal policies fail. The US gives moer aid to the Arabs then to Israel. Any oil deal was to enable israel to recoup its lost oil fields from the Sinai when Israel and Egypt signed a peace agreement and as far as the US military's supplys in Israel that is for the US more than Israel. Get your facts straight

Those polar bears can be really mean....Canada really needs F 35s...

If Israel followed through on that plan, IAI would be cranking out a Sixth Generation Fighter Jet today, American Conciliatory Politics be Damned.

one has to wonder if America stopped its support of israel, especially in the UN what would happen here.

You mean the US stopped funding the program. A program which had failed to produce an adequate airplane and proved that Israel was simply not up to doing anything once it had improved the Mirage III as much as it could. The 'Lavi' was a lemon.

It's not a secret that the congress was convinced the Lavi would offer serious completion to the F series.

If we decided to think long term when making decisions on whats the most logical choice for a next generation fighter we would not have gone with F35. Instead we should have opted to invest in developing a stealthy fighter UAV. Israel is a world leader in UAV development and the US have already decided that F22 & F35 will be the last generation of manned US fighters. If Israel developed a UAV as its next generation fighter then we would be flying unmanned fighter jets before the US was. There are many advantages to an Israeli developed UAV over a manned fighter. Pilots are not put at risk .. if we wanted to go to a place like Iran if we lost the plane the pilot would not be in the hands of the Revolutionry Gaurd to be tortured and executed. With a manned fighter you must compromise on performance because you have to consider the strains on the pilots body and the aircraft has to be designed so it can carry a pilot so half the space is dedicated just for the pilot to sit there and that also adds to the cost. An Israeli unmanned plane could carry whatever weapons and electronics we wanted to instal, it would probably be cheaper to operate and buy, again as your not giving space over to the pilot that extra room can be given over to extra weapons, fuel electronics etc so nothing is wasted. Also the best bit about it is one day we can export the thing so we would not only be creating jobs for Israelis building something tailor made for the IAF but we could one day export it helping it pay for itself. If we could find a partner like India the development cost could be spread. Thats what we should have done for Israels next generation fighter we can't afford the F35 and allowing ourselves to be bullied into buying that thing because the rest of the world is either canceling plans to buy or cutting down on the number planned. The UAV should have been the long term investment to replace the F16 and in the short term we should have opted for a small fleet of the F15SE which although not a fully stealth jet it is stealthy, as its just an evolution of the existing F15 and the US is not buying any for itself we could probably have them sooner, its cheaper, Israeli pilots already operate F15 so training isn't such a big problem, we would probably be able to customize it to our specific requirements instal all the Israeli electronics and weapons we want. As the F35 is supposed to be replacing F16 and we have no plans to replace the F15 air superiority fighters just yet as there is nothing revolutionry on the market except F22 which we can't have so by some F15SE which could also replace some of the older soon to be retired F15s and develop a UAV to eventually replace the F16. It would be the best use of finances. The winner would be Israel not the US arms industry at the expense of Israels and it would be a step further toward ending independence on the US. There would be some government investment needed to start the project yes but if we learn lessons from Lavi how that project got out of hand, if we can find a partner even better also unlike in the 80s israels economy is quite strong so we are financially in a much better position to develop our own plane now and as UAVS are the future and there is only about 3-4 countries in the world that are major developers of a whole range of UAVS ( Israel being one of them ) then we are also perfectly positioned. Germany was going to develop a UAV and they have been operating a small number of Israeli ones tailor made for Germany until they started work on their own but now the pressure is cancel the plans for a domestic one and buy more Israeli so we already have a long client list foe unmanned Israeli technology.

Lavi was superior to F16 financially and in combat. It was able to carry more weapons than F16, it was lighter, it was a dog fighter at least as much if not more than F16 it was designed specifically for that. it could carry alot of fuel for its small size. It cost less than F16 per unit and also unlike F16, it was very easy to quickly and cheaply turn it into a jet trainer so no need to buy extra planes to dedicate to training pilots. The Lavi was a dam good plane and Israel learned alot from it. Many of the systems developed originally for Lavi were later used in the Merkava, Israeli UAVS and some of the electronics used in Israels F16s. Its just a shame that they killed the thing. Yes during the development stage its expensive everything is at that stage but when it came to buying and operating the things it would be much cheaper than F16 and we could have eventually exported it but we can't export F16. Congress wanted the Lavi dead so they could not only export F16 to Israel but also ensure that there will be no competition to what at the time was the US premiere jet fighter .... they wanted to make sure foreigners were going to by flying F16 not Lavi. So the US did everything possible on their side to kill Lavi and so because of the state of Israels economy in the 80s and the fact that the US was now offering F16 which it previously refused to do the Knesset voted 61/59 to kill Lavi and go with the F16 costing the country thousands of jobs and ensuring that we would remain dependent on US jets.

Financing a fund raising trip for the building of a Mosque on Ground Zero.

Go figure voting, it's a weird thing American's can do.

Nuclear Weapons have been around for decades - have they stopped war?

Israel has much better & bigger Bang ! Bang ! capacity than all the squeaky countries round about. It would be quite sufficient to take out only one & the rest dare not show their snouts.....

Due mostly to its advanced electronics, radar and computerized flight controls. This is the big sticking point, America will outfit all export models with defective electronics that Israel will need the legal right to replace. This aircraft, is not however, suitable for facing the S-300.

You should pay up the money needed for the planes, and pay extra money to customize them! Customizing a modern jet plane is extremely costly!

even implies it would be done in the US, at the US expense. Children are so cute.

So what? The U.S. gets LOTS of intelligence and a myriad of other hi-tech and info benefits for them bucks... that is, if the CIA or any of the other agencies don't screw it up a la 9/11. On the other hand, I don't hear anyone complain about the billions that are sent to Egypt in order to prop a pseudo dictatorship, or the billions that the US sends to Africa and gets absolutely nothing in return. Before you're so quick to pull the trigger, Jeff, take a step back and look at the whole picture and you'll realize that despite the global anti-Israel rhetoric which you seem to be so happy to embrace, Israel is the US's best friend and its best investment overseas.

Israel provides America with technology, information and military support and buys equipment in return. If you would rather give your money to the Pakistanis and Saudis so they can use it to kill you, while Israel turns China or India into the new superpower, I am sure that can be arranged. The world will be happy to see America in Chains and Israel doing without you.

"Israel provides America with technology, information and military support" -- This is a priceless countervalue - 'priceless' in its literal meaning. You can append whichever pricetag you like, 1, 5, 10 billion dollars. True or not, nobody can tell.

It is not, as you make it sound UsedToPostHere, the other way around. Without U.S. aid, militarily or otherwise, Israel would have collapsed under pressure long ago. Don't distort facts. Israel receives far more from this alliance. America can acquire its own intelligence just fine. It did so long before Israel existed. As for myriad technological gadgets; U.S. can make those as well. Real value of Israel to the U.S. was during the Cold War, when it waged proxy wars for the U.S. and thus tested new weapon systems for the U.S. in the battlefield conditions, and kept in check Soviet client states like Syria and Egypt. Today, in many ways, Israel is more of a hinderance then an asset to America. It can't help out in any hotspots; like Iraq or Afghanistan, due to negative image that would inccur. Constant blunders; like the occupation, overzealous use of military might, killings of non-combatants etc. , hurt not only Israel, but the international standing of the U.S. as Israel's grand protector. Not to mention economic drain of several billions of dollars America gifts Israel each year. Billions that could be put to much better use in healing ailing economy. Don't indulge delusions that it is Israel preventing China or India from becoming a superpower. No nation as small as Israel can do that. Bullying under-equipped and under-trained Arab armies is one thing, but stopping a behemoth like China is entirely another. Get back to reallity, and fast. The world will be happy to see Israel in Chains, or not at all, and America doing without you. You may think me just another Israel basher, but I am not. It is just a realistic picture of the world today.

We could use those billions we give Israel annually better at home and we'd spend a lot less on defense, because without "Israel's support" America would be a lot less hated around the world.

For the Saudi's it is all about the royals skimming $$ off the top, for the Israel's it is about helping the american industrial complex, with taxpayer $$$.

America pays Israel for its services and Israel buys Inferior American Products in exchange. It is a far better arrangement than the one where America funnels billions into Pakistan so they can finance the Taliban.

Israel is the only true ally of the US in the Middle East. Israel, Canada, US, some Western European countries, Australia reprresent the real Democracy. Israel fights for a real Freedom EVERY DAY. Erdogan from Turkey & Co just called his shameful flotilla "Freedom". Americans know that Israel deserves trust (not Turkey, not Lebanon)

Pakistan, Iraq, Afganistan, Lebanon etc etc But you dont criticize that. At least money spent on Israel benefit the US industry and allows the US to have a reliable ally for 60 yrs...how does giving $ to Lebanon benefit US? So they can funnel $ to Hezbollah who killed hundreds of Marines.

2-3

3 Billion US$ in "direct" aid, but it is estimated that "indirect" aid amounts to approx 100 Billion US$....

about $2.6, none of which is economic aid, it is solely military aid. if israel's neighbors weren't so menacing, it'd probably be a lot less.