Israel Turning To Other Arms Sources Amid Uncertainty Of U.S., EU Sales
Israel’s Western weapons sources are no longer a sure thing; Haaretz found that former Soviet republics are pitching in.
By Gili Cohen | Aug. 25, 2014 | 2:39 AM
With the recent halt of a U.S. shipment of Hellfire missiles, and Spain and Britain announcing they were reconsidering their arms sales to Israel, are Israeli weapons supplies in danger? A probe by Haaretz shows that most of Israel’s arms imports are from the United States and a few other states. In recent years, however, Israel acquired hundreds of Russian-made shoulder-fired missiles. Defense experts warn that Washington held up the Hellfire shipment in order to send a warning to Jerusalem, which depends on U.S. weapons and munitions for its military operations.
Neither the Defense Ministry, which is in charge of military imports and exports, nor other state agencies regularly publish information on the topic. Most of the arms used by the Israel Defense Forces are manufactured locally or acquired with American aid funds. For the past several years U.S. aid to Israel has come to $3.1 billion a year. According to Defense Ministry projections, Israel’s use of U.S. aid for arms sales is expected to remain steady.
According to Defense Ministry figures, around one-quarter of the output of the Israeli defense industry is intended for IDF use. The rest is exported.
Despite official Israel’s reluctance to get specific about its arms trade, reports submitted by various states to the UN’s Register of Conventional Arms shed some light on the matter. For example, Ukraine’s official reports state that two years ago, Ukraine sold Israel 193 missiles and 32 launchers. According to reports made as part of the voluntary disclosure mechanism, in 2010 Ukraine sold Israel four Strella (SA-7) missiles and two launchers, about 75 Igla missiles of various models and 10 launchers for them. It is not clear why Israel purchased so many Russian-made shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. The assumption is that they are being acquired as part of Israel’s development of systems to counter them, such as the aircraft-defense system. As recently as February, Defense Ministry officials and Elbit Systems announced the successful completion of tests of the Sky Shield system, which is intended to protects civilian aircraft from shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. Arms experts have said it likely that Russian-made missiles were used in the test. Still, the number of missiles Ukraine reported selling to Israel is relatively large even for that purpose. Defense Ministry officials declined to comment for this report.
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