In a significant departure from past Israeli policy, Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert posed no objections yesterday to a new US plan
to sell state-of-the-art weaponry to Saudi Arabia and other
moderate Arab states, saying Iran was the common enemy.
"We understand the need of the United States to support the Arab
moderate states and there is a need for a united front between the
US and us regarding Iran," Olmert told a weekly Cabinet
meeting.
Still, the proposed arms deal - which would include advanced
weaponry and air systems that would greatly enhance the striking
ability of Saudi warplanes - set off alarms on the Israeli right,
with one prominent politician saying he feared that Saudi Arabia,
although not belligerent at present, could be taken over by
extremists.
The proposed package comes with a sweetener for Israel: a 25
percent rise in US military aid, from an annual US$2.4 billion at
present to US$3 billion a year, guaranteed for 10 years, Olmert and
officials in Washington said.
Senior administration officials said Friday that President
George W. Bush would seek Congressional approval for additional
military aid to both Israel and Egypt, which currently gets US$1.3
billion annually.
The officials said that before leaving on a Mideast tour today,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would announce those proposals,
along with the plan to sell US$5 billion or more in sophisticated
weaponry to Saudi Arabia and other rich Gulf states.
The aid packages represent long-standing US commitments to
Israel, its principal ally in the region, and to moderate, secular
Egypt. At the same time, the US is seeking to strengthen other
moderate Mideast allies, largely as a counterweight to Iran's
growing influence in the region.
The US and Israel accuse Iran of developing a nuclear weapon, a
charge Teheran denies. Iran, whose leader has repeatedly threatened
to wipe Israel off the map, is viewed by Israel as its main
enemy.
Media reports for months have said Israel was trying to hamper
the Saudi weapons deal, as it has done with previous proposed arms
deals over the years, notably Jimmy Carter's attempt to sell F-15
warplanes and hi-tech AWACS airborne warning and control aircraft
to Saudi Arabia in the 1980s.
Although the Israeli right voiced worries about the latest plan,
it stopped short of outright calls to block it.
"I am very concerned," Yuval Steinitz, a key hawk on
parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said. He said
the US had supplied Iran with fighter aircraft before its 1979
Islamic Revolution ousted the Western-leaning Shah.
"Now those same F-14s are being used to threaten US interests in
the region," Steinitz said.
But he indicated he would accept the Saudi deal if some
safeguards were attached.
(China Daily via agencies July 30, 2007)
