Ha’Aretz: U.S. to store $800m in military gear in Israel

David Streeter — January 12, 2010 – 10:20 am | Barack Obama | Foreign Policy | Israel Comments (0) Add a comment

According to Israel’s Ha’Aretz, the US government recently authorized the military to increase its arms stockpiles in Israel. According to the report:

The U.S. Army will double the value of emergency military equipment it stockpiles on Israeli soil, and Israel will be allowed to use the U.S. ordnance in the event of a military emergency…

And:

The deal allows Israel access to a wider spectrum of military ordnance, and the U.S. official said his government was considering which forms of military supplies would be added to stores in Israel. Missiles, armored vehicles, aerial ammunition and artillery ordnance are already stockpiled in the country.

The agreement is expected to aid Israel in its effort to bolster its weapons stockpiles for use in an emergency. Israel’s stores of aerial and artillery ammunition were depleted during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, nearly reaching levels the IDF considers dangerously low.

This report came just one day after Ha’Aretz echoed a similar story from The Forward about President George W. Bush’s neglect for US-Israel military cooperation. According to Ha’Aretz:

The Bush administration violated security related agreements with Israel in which the U.S. promised to preserve the IDF’s qualitative edge over Arab armies, according to senior officials in the Obama administration and Israel.

Ha’Aretz also reports:

In an address before the National Jewish Democratic Council, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, commented on the matter. ‘We discovered that the qualitative edge of the IDF has been eroded,’ Oren said. ‘We came to the Obama administration and said: Listen, we have a problem.’

Oren also remarked at the conference:

... the administration’s reaction was immediate: we are going to address this issue, we are going to make sure that we maintain your ‘QME,’ and now we have opened up an entire dialogue [on this issue].... It was just so warm and immediate, that response.

 

 

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