The Obama administration stopped shipping to Israel all defense items – and not just Hellfire missiles as previously reported – for a short time in the middle of the war against Hamas, reported Israel Defense’s Amir Rappaport, the well-informed and highly credibly editor of the website.
Makor Rishon added to that report that the US actually cut off all communications with Israel’s Ministry of Defense purchasing offices in the US for days.
The Defense Ministry, now realizing it cannot always depend on the Obama administration in a time of crisis, already has decided under a “veil of secrecy,” according to Israel Defense, to manufacture a highly sensitive weapon in Israel instead of buying it from the United States.
The change in policy is a major step that would wean Israel away from dependence on the United States and which also would be a significant change in the policy of buying American-made weapons with most financial assistance from the United States.
American aid to countries, including Israel, usually is conditioned on a majority of the money being poured back into the American military-industrial complex.
“The Israeli defense establishment will reduce the production of weapon systems in the USA in the context of joint Israeli-American projects, and will rely more heavily on Israeli-made products” as a result of the punitive action taken by President Barack Obama, Rappaport wrote.
President Obama said during the war he was concerned about the high number of alleged civilian casualties from the Protect Edge counter-terrorist war in Gaza, and he was quoted as having warned that he his level of tolerance was approximately 1,000 deaths.
A final analysis of the death toll showed that most of the 2,000 who were killed in Gaza were terrorists, and a large number of the civilians who were killed acted as human shields, either by their own will or by force.
However, it was not only the death toll that concerned senior officials in the Obama, including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who was labeled as “messianic” earlier this year by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon.
The ministry also is examining the possibility of using Israel-made precision guided air-to-surface munition to replace Hellfire missiles, a project that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions.
The crisis with the Obama administration in the middle of the war was revealed first by The Wall Street Journal, which reported at the time that the Pentagon held up the transfer of Hellfire missiles that the IDF needed to replace weapons that had been deployed in the war.
The United States not only stopped shipping the missiles but also held up other requests for defense materials. Rappaport wrote that the “order to stop the processing of all Israeli requests came from a senior echelon – probably the White House, among other reasons, because Israel had ignored the initiatives of Secretary of State John Kerry and preferred to end the operation through a direct channel with the Egyptian.” He added that the State Dept. also had not forgotten and apparently has not forgiven Ya’alon for his “messianic” comment.
The Defense Minister, who is flying to the United States Saturday night for a five-day visit, went to extremes to paint a luvvy-duvvy picture of American-Israeli relations.
“The United States assists Israel in a variety of areas, most prominently of course in the field of security, and we must remember that and acknowledge its leaders and thank them for this,” Ya’alon said in a press release. “The respective defense establishments in both countries have a relationship whose intimacy is unprecedented in scope and importance for Israel’s security.
“There is also a close, tight relationship with my friend, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.”
He also said, “We mustn’t allow any disagreements to cast a pall over those interests and values.”