US envoy: Arms deal with UAE won’t affect Israel’s military superiority

David Friedman, US Ambassador to Israel speaks during a briefing at the White House 13 August 2020 in Washington, DC [Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images]

The United States Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, said on Wednesday that any future arms deal between the United States and the United Arab Emirates will not endanger Israel’s military superiority in the region.

Speaking to Israel’s Jerusalem Post newspaper, Friedman stressed that the normalisation agreement between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi under the US auspices “does not undermine Israel’s security” adding that the claim is nothing but a “political attack by the pro-Iran” alliance.

On Tuesday, Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that Washington plans to sell F-35 fighter jets to the UAE as part of Abu Dhabi’s deal announced last week to normalise ties with Israel.

A White House source and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have both denied that the deal includes the sale of F-35 jets.

READ: Netanyahu intends to visit UAE before end of 2020

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.