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US President Donald Trump confirmed that the United Arab Emirates was seeking to procure “quite a few” fifth-generation F-35 fighter jets. “It’s under review, but they made a great advance in peace in the Middle East,” the US president said while referencing last week’s normalization agreement between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has in the past opposed the sale of F-35s and other advanced weaponry to any country in the Middle East so that Israel is able to maintain its qualitative military edge. Notably, this policy applies to Egypt and Jordan, with which Israel has signed peace deals. Nevertheless, in recent months top Israeli officials have reviewed the possibility of US arms sales to various regional states.
In response to Israeli concerns, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said: “Ultimately, under the right circumstances, both the US and Israel would benefit greatly from having a strong ally situated across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran.”
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US President Donald Trump said he expected Saudi Arabia to follow the UAE by establishing official relations with Israel. However, his comments came on the same day that Riyadh’s foreign minister conditioned such an eventuality on the conclusion of an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. “Once that is achieved all things are possible,” the top Saudi diplomat asserted.
Meanwhile, Sudan has fired its foreign ministry spokesman following his remarks regarding “contacts” between Khartoum and Jerusalem. It has been widely been reported that Sudan is considering formalizing ties with Israel. Even so, the Sudanese spokesman, Haydar Sadig, was removed from his post after describing the United Arab Emirates’ decision as “a brave and bold step”.
All of this comes on the backdrop of a fatwa issued by the Palestinian Authority’s Grand Mufti that effectively bans foreign Muslims from praying at the al-Aqsa Mosque, which is located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The PA slammed the Israel-UAE deal — which includes a clause permitting Emiratis to travel to the Jewish state — as a “betrayal” of the Palestinian cause. Religious leaders in the West Bank have preemptively described as traitors Muslims from regional countries who in the future choose to make pilgrimages to the mosque, Islam’s third holiest site.
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Israel has reportedly confronted the Trump administration about a new nuclear facility being built in a desert in Saudi Arabia with China’s help. The development has raised concern in Jerusalem that the House of Saud may be moving to establish the infrastructure required for a military nuclear program.
The news comes as the UAE on Wednesday confirmed that its first nuclear power plant had been connected to the country’s power grid. Abu Dhabi is planning to build four reactors that will ostensibly provide the country with up to 25 percent of its energy needs. Additionally, Egypt is expected to begin work on its first nuclear site in the second half of 2021. That reactor will be located in the city of Dabaa, about 130 kilometers northwest of Cairo.
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Iran reportedly supplied its Hezbollah terror proxy with hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate from 2013-2014, around the same time that Lebanese officials confiscated thousands of tons of the explosive substance. This month’s devastating blast at the Port of Beirut has been widely attributed to the ignition of some 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate.
The report, citing a Western security expert, suggested that Hezbollah may have sought the supply in order to perpetrate attacks against Israel. According to the source, the terror group has been working on a network of subterranean tunnels that could be used, among other things, to smuggle explosive materials into Israel.
In other Iran-related news, senior White House adviser Jared Kushner said that Washington was willing to enter into peace negotiations with the Islamic Republic if US President Donald Trump is reelected in November. The overture comes amid reports that the Trump administration conveyed to Israel that it would on Thursday initiate a process at the UN Security Council (UNSC) meant to lead to a “snapback” of sanctions on Iran. The initiative is widely expected to fail, not unlike the recent rejection by the UNSC of a US-led bid to extend a conventional arms embargo on Tehran that is slated to expire in October.
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Antisemitism Watch: The FBI is under fire after posting to one of its official Twitter accounts a link to a 139-page document containing the law enforcement agency’s files on “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” The infamous early 20th century compilation accuses Jews of seeking world domination. Despite having been thoroughly debunked, the “Protocols” nevertheless continues to play a major role in fostering antisemitism. The FBI Records Vault sent the tweet without providing context, leading some users to view it as tacit support by the agency for the text.
A court of appeals has ruled that a museum in Spain — and not the heirs of a Jewish woman who fled the Holocaust — is the rightful owner of a Pissarro painting currently valued at $40 million. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid in 1992 acquired the artwork titled, “Rue St.-Honore, Apres-Midi, Effet de Pluie”. A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California, unanimously ruled that the painting should remain the museum’s property. The verdict upheld a 2019 federal court decision.
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Beatie Deutsch, a Sabbath-observing Israeli Jew, has hired an attorney with a view to ensuring that if she qualifies for the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, she can compete in the marathon event. When in March the new schedule for the global sporting competition — which was postponed a year due to the coronavirus pandemic — was released, Deutsch wrote a letter to the International Olympic Committee requesting that the new date of the marathon, which falls on a Saturday, be changed.
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- Israel and UAE have been doing secret defense deals for years (Alex Fishman, Ynet)
- After peace deal, UAE girl plays Israel’s national anthem, ‘Hatikvah’ (Algemeiner)
- How Israel stopped attempted attack at its disputed border with Syria (Tom O’Connor, Newsweek)
- EU review of Palestinian textbooks is a tragedy of errors, says watchdog group (Israel Kasnett, JNS)
- Sudan ditches destructive ‘three no’s’ strategy (Eldad Beck, Israel Hayom)
