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Netanyahu refused delivery of submarines to Morsi, agreed for Sisi

July 19, 2017 at 9:33 am

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 5 September, 2012 [Utenriksdepartementet UD/Flickr]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused a German-Egyptian submarine deal in 2012 for fear of the weapons being in the hands for ousted President Mohamed Morsi, but has since approved the deal for current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, Hebrew website Mida revealed.

According to reports, in 2011, then Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Netanyahu agreed to allow Germany to sell submarines to Egypt because Hosni Mubarak was in power.

According to Israeli Journalist Arad Nir, speaking on Channel 2, Morsi’s rise to power forced Israel to cancel its approval and object to the deal.

Nir referred to the German newspaper Der Spiegel which claimed that “the Israeli government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu and other prominent ministers, had put a lot of pressure on Germany to cancel the submarine deal.”

Read: Germany may cancel Israel submarine deal

The newspaper also talked about tense discussions between Netanyahu and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Merkel promised that if the submarine deal threatened Israel’s military superiority in the region, she would cancel it.

#SubmarinesDeal

However, in 2014, Israel approved the deal because Al-Sisi was now at the helm of Egypt and his relations with Israel are much stronger, according to Israeli journalist Raviv Drucker.