F-35 Jets for Israel

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

American arms shipments to Israel have not stopped since the July 2006 war began. During the war, America supplied Israel with large quantities of weapons — smart bombs, cluster munitions, bunker-busting missiles, and destructive bombs in particular — in an effort to tip the scales of the war in Israel’s favor and inflict defeat on Hezbollah. But the outcome of the war convinced America that what it had supplied Israel with was not effective to the degree required, and its effectiveness showed up hideously instead against civilians, and it had to supply Israel with what it believed could prove more effective in confronting Hezbollah’s combat methods and means.

After the war, America supplied weapons and munitions to make up for the shortfall that had occurred in its own strategic stockpile, and began supplying new types of munitions more lethal than those used in July. And in the wake of Israeli and American anxieties over new Iranian military technologies that Iran had supplied to Hezbollah — including ground-to-ground, ground-to-sea, and ground-to-air missiles more accurate, longer-ranged, and with a heavier payload than those available during the July war — America decided to supply Israel with new strategic defensive and offensive weapons, including anti-missile missiles and F-35 aircraft.

What is the F-35?

This is an aircraft that comes in three variants — the F-35A, F-35B, and F-35C — each with its own particular military missions, and it is expected to remain the aircraft of the future through the year 2040. The aircraft is manufactured by the American companies Lockheed and Northrop, and its funding is shared among a number of states, including America, Britain, Canada, Australia, Norway, Denmark, Turkey, and Israel. Among the most notable features of its production is that it is manufactured the way cars are — on an assembly line. This enables the manufacturers to produce one aircraft every day. I will focus here on the first variant, the F-35A, which has already been tested.

Israel requested to obtain the aircraft, and approval was granted to supply it in 2014; the American Defense Department then revised that and moved the date up to 2012. It appears the American president rushed the matter and decided to supply Israel with it hastily, even though the aircraft’s mass military production is not set to begin until the start of the coming decade.

The aircraft is capable of evading radar, and it carries highly advanced electronic sensors specialized in target acquisition, threat detection, and targeting, and it requires a runway only 180 meters long. (In the other variants, no runway is even necessary.) The aircraft carries two air-to-air missiles, two bombs weighing about 1,000 kilograms each, and a 25mm machine gun with 180 rounds of ammunition for ground targeting. The missiles are guided by satellite, which is why it can strike targets from medium altitude instead of risking low-altitude bombing runs.

The aircraft is flown by a single pilot only, and its weapons and fuel tank are both internal. Its speed is Mach 1.6, or around 2,000 km/h. The aircraft climbs to 48,000 feet, and its range is 2,200 km.

Israel and America do not know exactly what new weapons Hezbollah possesses, and the two of them constantly discuss the matter, trying through various intelligence channels to obtain information on it. Both states face a major problem: they watch Hezbollah’s and Iran’s strength growing, while at the same time they do not know the true effectiveness of the weapons that have been publicly announced, let alone the weapons that have not been announced at all; and they believe that delaying an attack only increases future risks. They face uncertainty if they attack the enemy, and a predicament if they do not. In any case, there is no escaping the need to continue preparing for the coming battle.

America’s haste in supplying Israel with weapons is neither casual nor merely precautionary — aggression is the correct explanation for this behavior.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “إف 35 لإسرائيل” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.