Israel Already Pays for US Aid

By Moshe Feiglin

Last week, leading Republican candidate Donald Trump said that Israel will have to pay for the military aid it receives from the US. It is not entirely clear to me (and apparently, not to him, either) what he meant. How does one pay for aid? After all, if we pay for the weaponry that we receive in exchange for the aid funds, it is no longer aid, but simply a purchase.

Although I am not sure what Trump meant, I can say that if he meant that the aid to Israel should stop – then I am totally on board. Israel should have initiated the termination of US aid a long time ago. In a television interview I explained that the F-35 ‘aid’ to Israel meets America’s needs – not Israel’s (except for the needs of a few people in Israel, who, according to the Olmert recordings, are making a lot of money from these deals).

This week we were informed that the Director of the Operational Test and Evaluation Directorate of the United States Department of Defense, .Dr. Michael Gilmore  reported to Congress that even now, after a long term effort to fix the ‘bugs’ in the F35, tests show defects that cannot be ignored.

According to a March 24^th article in Janes:

“The limited and incomplete F-35 cyber-security testing accomplished to date has … revealed deficiencies that cannot be ignored,” Michael Gilmore, the director of combat testing, said in a prepared statement for a hearing by the House Armed Services subcommittee on tactical air and land forces. Gilmore’s testimony summarizes earlier reports that detail the risks of concurrent development and production of weapon systems.

Furthermore, the mission systems software supporting the aircraft’s Northrop Grumman AN/APG-81 AESA radar is not stable enough for combat, according to Gilmore’s testimony. The radar has to be restarted once every four hours of flying time, the statement said. The US Air Force (USAF) has said that fixing this issue remains its main concern before it can allow its jets to deploy in combat.

The American ‘aid’ coerced Israel into buying a scandalous,  non-deployable weapons system. In another nine months, the F35s will be landing in Israel. The capability of these jets to reach Iran is doubtful. Every four hours the pilot has to restart the radar. The Americans no longer believe that they will be ready for deployment for at least another two years.

I have news for you, Mr. Trump. Israel is already paying for the American ‘aid’. And how…