In Middle East arms bazaar, we’re always thinking ahead

“More weapons to Israel,” says A, as the waiter refills the coffee cups. “And that’s a good idea … why?”

“It’s obvious,” says B.

The coffee is fresh, the morning is young. There’s nothing else on A’s schedule for hours. He can afford to be patient.

“Completely obvious,” says B, punctuating his pronouncement with a long, slow swallow.

“Help me,” says A.

“You give more weapons to Israel,” B explains, as if to a large melon, “or they’ll object to you giving more weapons to Egypt.”

A brief silence, as A considers this new information. There’s still something not quite right about it.

So we’re giving arms to one country so it can keep at bay the second country to whom we’ve also given arms to keep the first country at bay. Got it. We’re in the business of exporting arms races to the rest of the world!

U.S. Arms Sales Preserve Israel’s Edge

When the United States sells state-of-the-art weapons systems to Arab nations, it invariably provides even more lethal and sophisticated arms to its steadfast ally, Israel, in order to help counter the firepower of its neighbors.

So, when Egypt gets the M60A3 and M1A1 Abrams battle tanks, Israel gets the TOW-2A and Hellfire anti-tank missiles to blow up the Egyptian vehicles — in the event of a military confrontation between the two countries currently wedded to the 1979 Camp David peace treaty.

Likewise, when the United States grudgingly provides McDonnell Douglas F-15 fighter planes to Saudi Arabia, Israel is armed either with Sidewinder and Sparrow air-to-air missiles or Hawk and Stinger surface-to-air missiles to bring down the U.S.-supplied Saudi aircraft.

Every U.S. government has ensured that no weapons sales to Arab nations would undermine Israel’s traditional “qualitative (military) advantage” over its perceived rivals.