New law requires the administration to ensure Israel’s military advantage
http://forward.com/articles/121182/
U.S.-Israeli Arms Cooperation Quietly Growing
By Nathan Guttman
Washington — Leaders in Washington and Jerusalem have publicly locked horns over the issue of West Bank settlements. And Israeli public opinion has largely viewed America’s new administration as unfriendly. But behind the scenes, strategic security relations between the two countries are flourishing.
Israeli officials have been singing the praises of President Obama for his willingness to address their defense concerns and for actions taken by his administration to bolster Israel’s qualitative military edge — an edge eroded, according to Israel, during the final year of the George W. Bush presidency.
Among the new initiatives taken by the administration, the Forward has learned, are adjustments in a massive arms deal the Bush administration made with Arab Gulf states in response to Israeli concerns. There have also been upgrades in U.S.-Israeli military cooperation on missile defense. And a deal is expected next year that will see one of the United States’ most advanced fighter jets go to Israel with some of America’s most sensitive new technology.
Amid the cacophony of U.S.-Israel clashes on the diplomatic front, public attention given to this intensified strategic cooperation has been scant. But in a rare public comment in October, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren praised the Obama administration’s response to complaints about lost ground during the close of the Bush years as “warm and immediate.”
“We came to the Obama administration and said, ‘Listen, we have a problem here,’” Oren, told a gathering of the National Jewish Democratic Council. “The administration’s reaction was immediate: we are going to address this issue, we are going to make sure that we maintain your QME [qualitative military edge].”
The warmth seems to stand in contrast to public opinion in Israel, which, according to a recent survey, is highly critical of Obama, seeing him as weak and naive. Bush is perceived as having been a much stronger ally.
But when the new administration settled in, it faced entreaties from Jerusalem to redress what Israeli officials saw as an erosion on the strategic side during the last stage of Bush’s tenure.
The Israelis cited Arab progress in replacing old Soviet weapons with new Western arms, and advances in the operational technology of weapons that has made Israel’s investment in human skills less significant.
But Jerusalem’s concerns, well-informed Israeli sources say, were also stoked by a massive $20 billion arms deal that the United States signed with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states during the Bush administration’s last year. In its attempt to counter Iran’s military buildup and nuclear ambitions, the former administration approved an arms contract that included upgrades of the Gulf countries’ air and naval capabilities, as well as advanced missile defense systems and modern satellite-guided bombs.
Israel, which sees Iran as its prime enemy in the region, initially accepted the Bush strategists’ rationale for the huge arms transfer. Jerusalem voiced only mild concern regarding some of the specifics, mainly the supply of precision bombs.
But in recent months, Israeli defense officials visiting Washington stepped up complaints about the Saudi deal. To the newly installed Obama administration officials, the Israelis argued that the usage and deployment of these arms breached earlier understandings and could tilt the military balance against Israel.
These complaints were met with what one Israeli diplomat called a “receptiveness” that was demonstrated in the new administration’s willingness to adjust the arms deployments to mitigate Israel’s concerns.
A former senior security official in the Bush administration said Bush’s guidance to all levels was to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge. The ex-official, who would speak only on background, added that the arms sales to Gulf countries were done in light of the Arab world’s anxiety over Iran’s ambitions. “We saw it as a positive for all sides,” he said, adding Israel had no complaints against it “on the strategic level.”
According to Steve Rosen, a former lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who is now a private consultant, the Obama administration, and especially the Pentagon, is now more open to supplying Israel with cutting-edge technology in an attempt to ensure Israel’s confidence and possibly steer Jerusalem away from the idea of attacking Iran. “In an effort to give Israel a larger margin of safety, the U.S. is releasing technology that under other circumstances would have been seen as more sensitive,” he said.
The United States and Israel have also recently launched a new consultative mechanism for discussing and addressing issues relating to Israel’s qualitative military edge. This new process, involving key officials from the Pentagon and State Department on the American side and Israel’s Foreign and Defense ministries, is currently being applied to several outstanding Israeli concerns. Israeli defense officials and pro-Israel activists characterize this as a significant development in strategic consultations between the two countries.
America’s commitment to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge was codified directly into U.S. law via 2008 legislation backed by AIPAC. This legislation requires the president to report to Congress periodically on actions taken by the administration to ensure Israel’s advantage. A spokeswoman for the House Foreign Affairs Committee told the Forward that the White House provided its first report to Congress this past summer. The report was classified, and no information regarding its content has been released.
Long before the 2008 law, the Reagan administration promised that America would ensure Israel’s military advantage over its neighbors. And succeeding presidents have maintained this commitment. The commitment defined Israel’s strategic advantage as the difference between Israel’s military capabilities compared with each one of its Arab adversaries or with the combination of all adversaries.
“Originally, it was Israel’s way to overcome its numeric inferiority,” said Guy Ben-Ari, deputy director of the defense-industrial initiatives group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He explained that the notion has been held up by both sides, despite the fact that Israel’s main military challenges — confronting terrorism and Iran’s nuclear threat — are not issues determined by the size of its military. The Israelis stressed that what happened during the close of Bush’s tenure was an erosion of Israeli’s military edge, not a breach of the Reagan era commitment.
Beyond correcting the perceived imbalance that developed under Bush, Israeli officials have also praised the Obama administration for increasing cooperation about missile defense. A November joint American-Israeli exercise, codenamed Juniper Cobra, was the largest and most extensive missile defense dry run ever held, and involved 1,400 American servicemen simulating responses to a possible attack against Israel. “The size and the high profile [of the exercise] are a signal from the administration about its commitment to Israel’s security,” an Israeli diplomat said.
Another deal that is highly anticipated in Israel is the expected sale of the advanced F-35 fighter jets to Israel’s air force. The Pentagon has offered Israel a unique version of the radar-evading future aircraft for supply in 2015. A deal is expected to be signed early next year.
Still, Israeli officials and American lobbyists stressed that not all outstanding issues have been resolved. Supporters of Israel are now pushing for the administration and Congress to limit American arms sales to Lebanon because of the re-emergence of Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon on Israel’s northern border, and the failure of the central government in Beirut to disarm the group. Pro-Israel lobbyists cite their concern that American weapons might fall into the hands of Hezbollah, which is backed by Israel’s avowed enemy, Iran.
Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com
New law requires the administration to ensure Israel’s military advantage
Washington’s Blog
Friday, Jan 1st, 2010
On December 21st, Glenn Greenwald quoted from The Jewish Daily Forward to make an important point:
While reports have focused on alleged tension between the Obama administration and Israel over the latter’s uncooperative conduct, this is what is actually happening:
Behind the scenes, strategic security relations between the two countries are flourishing. Israeli officials have been singing the praises of President Obama for his willingness to address their defense concerns and for actions taken by his administration to bolster Israel’s qualitative military edge — an edge eroded, according to Israel, during the final year of the George W. Bush presidency.
Among the new initiatives taken by the administration, the Forward has learned, are adjustments in a massive arms deal the Bush administration made with Arab Gulf states in response to Israeli concerns. There have also been upgrades in U.S.-Israeli military cooperation on missile defense. And a deal is expected next year that will see one of the United States’ most advanced fighter jets go to Israel with some of America’s most sensitive new technology.
Amid the cacophony of U.S.-Israel clashes on the diplomatic front, public attention given to this intensified strategic cooperation has been scant. But in a rare public comment in October, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren praised the Obama administration’s response to complaints about lost ground during the close of the Bush years as “warm and immediate.”
“We came to the Obama administration and said, ‘Listen, we have a problem here,’” Oren, told a gathering of the National Jewish Democratic Council. “The administration’s reaction was immediate: we are going to address this issue, we are going to make sure that we maintain your QME [qualitative military edge].”
All of this is being done pursuant to this:
America’s commitment to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge was codified directly into U.S. law via 2008 legislation backed by AIPAC. This legislation requires the president to report to Congress periodically on actions taken by the administration to ensure Israel’s advantage.
I have to confess that I didn’t realize that a law was enacted last year making it a legal requirement for America to maintain “Israel’s qualitative military edge,” and — even more amazingly — that the President of the U.S. is required to report regularly to the U.S. Congress on the steps he’s taking to ensure Israel’s superiority. That’s a rather extraordinary law, and the administration seems to be fulfilling its requirements faithfully.
Update: We tracked down the actual law, 22 USC Sec. 2776, and it appears to mainly be focused on exports of military equipment and services by the U.S.:
ASSESSMENT OF ISRAEL’S QUALITATIVE MILITARY EDGE OVER MILITARY THREATS
Pub. L. 110-429, title II, Sec. 201, Oct. 15, 2008, 122 Stat. 4843, provided that:
“(a) Assessment Required. – The President shall carry out an empirical and qualitative assessment on an ongoing basis of the extent to which Israel possesses a qualitative military edge over military threats to Israel. The assessment required under this subsection shall be sufficiently robust so as to facilitate comparability of data over concurrent years.
“(b) Use of Assessment. – The President shall ensure that the assessment required under subsection (a) is used to inform the review by the United States of applications to sell defense articles and defense services under the Arms Export Control Act (22U.S.C. 2751 et seq.) to countries in the Middle East.
“(c) Reports. -
“(1) Initial report. – Not later than June 30, 2009, the President shall transmit to the appropriate congressional committees a report on the initial assessment required under subsection (a).
“(2) Quadrennial report. – Not later than four years after the date on which the President transmits the initial report under paragraph (1), and every four years thereafter, the President shall transmit to the appropriate congressional committees a report on the most recent assessment required under subsection (a).
“(d) Certification. – [Amended this section.]
“(e) Definitions. – In this section:
“(1) Appropriate congressional committees. – The term ‘appropriate congressional committees’ means the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate.
“(2) Qualitative military edge. – The term ‘qualitative military edge’ has the meaning given the term in section 36(h) of the Arms Export Control Act, as added by subsection (d) of this section [22 U.S.C. 2776(h)].”
As blogger Cryptovariable (who tracked down 22 USC Sec. 2776) describes the law:
Basically what this says is “Review Israel’s military strength every 4 years, and don’t sell the Arabs anything that is better than or the same as what Israel has”. The requirement that arms exports to Arab countries be certified as not “being on par with Israel” is elsewhere in this part of the United States Code. The report basically sets a benchmark for what Israel’s technical capabilities are, so we know what we can and cannot sell to the Arabs.
So we can sell F-35s to Israel, but only F-16s to Kuwait.
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