Israel is determined to become militarily independent
An excellent idea, if they can pull it off:
“I approved, along with the defense minister and finance minister, a sum of NIS 350 billion [$108 billion] over the next decade to build an independent Israeli munitions industry,” Netanyahu said in an address at a graduation ceremony for Israeli Air Force pilots.
The move, he said, stemmed from a desire to “reduce our dependence on all players, including friends,” after allies including the US, UK, and Germany all imposed various restrictions on weapons sales to Israel since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
Still, he noted, many countries around the world, including Germany, “want to buy from us more and more systems.”
The Biden administration taught the Israelis a lesson: don’t depend on the US, which is undependable.
The US gets plenty of intelligence from Israel, plus Israel has sometimes taken our military hardware and improved on it. I hope this new (and necessary) initiative won’t end those things that benefit the US.
Here’s an article from about a year ago, describing some of the problems inherent in Israel’s becoming truly independent:
“But we have dependence in all areas. It’s not just about ammunition and munitions: There are all kinds of platforms we need. Even if we produce more of our own bombs, we still need to get the planes from the US in order to fly, so we haven’t really reduced our dependence on the US just by producing more bombs,” he said.
“We talked about building our own planes once and it absolutely ruined us,” the former NSC deputy chief said. “Something like only six countries in the world produce their own fighters. The prices for production are only becoming more and more exorbitant. Even the Europeans ‘cooperate’ and buy from the US. We certainly cannot” build aircraft on our own.
Freilich was referring to the 1980-1987 period when Israel explored “the Lavi project,” which former defense minister Ezer Weizman had dreamed would help Israel become independent in developing its own aircraft.
However, the government ended the program in 1987 – despite many successes even to the test flight stage – deciding that a mix of having maxed out the defense budget in an unsustainable way to around 18% of GDP and the seeming impossibility of competing with US defense companies in this area were just too much.
“Even if we do manufacture a plane of our own, we would still be significantly dependent on the Americans: Many external parts such as metals and electronic components are still being imported from the US,” clarified Dr. Shmuel Even in a posting on the air force website in 2015. “Manufacturing an Israeli plane would definitely benefit the Israeli work market, but the odds of selling large quantities of the plane are pretty low due to tough competition with American industries.”
Frelich continued, “Even the Merkava tank, which Israel made – its engine comes from the US. Again, we are totally dependent.
“Independence from US military supply is fanciful,” he said.
At the very least, Israel can try to become as independent as possible.
Not so much undependable, as changeable. Like all nation-states, but especially democracies. Only the rocks live forever. That said, Israel has done pretty well by us, all things considered.
One of the Israel/Zionist and by extension Jew haters’ complaint is the aid the US gives Israel. But even if Israel does attain military independence it won’t shut them up.
Those Jew haters overlook that we give plenty of aid to Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon among others. But it would be better for Israel to reduce its dependence on the US.
As a geographically small country, I would think their real “reach” would not have to be all that great “most of the time”. But reducing dependencies in selected expendable materiel does improve their negotiating position with those allies from whom they do buy major systems.
Most of these ideas are addressing a war/battle scenario in the “future” while expecting to do what they can and what is necessary in the near term with what they already have.
Plus I presume that unmanned platforms are much cheaper for equal or superior performance if/when the control systems can avoid being compromised.
But complete independence is clearly a foolish real goal. Even the US has purposely tied some joint system developments to partial sourcing from allies. The overall goal is still establishing credible deterrence for the foes they realistically might face. I suppose the most serious one is probably Turkey, but not China, Russia, etc.
@ R2L > “But reducing dependencies in selected expendable materiel does improve their negotiating position with those allies from whom they do buy major systems.”
That was my first thought.
Israel was very much under Biden Inc.’s thumb over ammunition more than over platforms, IIRC.
Also Obama’s obstructions, if memory serves.
Probably goes back further.
The actions of the Democrats are somewhat analogous to their Gun Grabber tactic of restricting ammo supplies where they can’t restrict gun ownership, due to SCOTUS decisions. Some of the Justices are onto that dodge, though.
One of the Israel/Zionist and by extension Jew haters’ complaint is the aid the US gives Israel. But even if Israel does attain military independence it won’t shut them up.
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You can point out that the aid was minimal prior to 1973, that the ratio of aid to Israel’s gross national income reached its peak in 1984 and is now 1/10 th of the peak, that the aid consists of credits to buy equipment from American manufacturers, and that if you withdrew the aid tomorrow the net effect would be an economic recession of ordinary severity which would feature fiscal problems to be worked out in the course of a business cycle. Few of these blowhards have any clue about the scale of anything.
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One thing about Israel-haters I’ve discovered is that empirical data has absolutely no effect on their thinking. Point out something well-known – e.g. the Arab bosses on the West Bank and Gaza have been offered their own state 3x and have spurned the offer each time – and they just keep babbling on as if you hadn’t said anything.
People also have no clue about the reciprocal benefit to the US from Israeli purchases of weapons. Israel modifies almost everything it gets from us, or redesigns it for better effectiveness. For example, when they used F-35s to target sites in Iran, their planes didn’t have the necessary combat radius. So Israel rapidly designed and fitted conformal fuel tanks that maintained the aircraft’s stealthy profile and increased the combat radius to the needed 1000 miles.
I just now saw this You Tube video by Peter Zeihan discussing the possibility that Israel might have to cozy up to Turkey for security guarantees if or when the relationship with the US turns less supportive (as he projects it might at some future time).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiBWgUdGaIo [7 min]
Does Turkey Have the Power to Control Israel’s Future?
He postulates an “alliance” of sorts among Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. YMMV.
Given Israel-Turkey relations over the past more than a decade, but especially since October 7, 2023, one might well ask what Mr. Zeihan has been smoking….
(Put another way, Erdogan, who along with Qatar has fallen over himself legitimizing and hosting Hamas, may be described as working tirelessly to undermine US—and others’—relations with the Zionist Entity.)
Well, of course they need to. You may get another Joe Biden like democrat in office and then what happens too security.
An asset that Israel can trade for American weapons is their high-tech weapons. See this article about an anti-aircraft laser cannon now being deployed by the Israelis.
IDF inducts iron beam, world’s first laser beam air defense system
The system “has an unlimited magazine, with almost zero cost per interception, and causes minimal collateral damage.”
Heralding a new era in modern warfare, the Israeli armed forces have inducted the world’s first laser air defense system, Iron Beam, into their arsenal. On Sunday, Israel’s Minister of Defense and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems handed over the system to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The laser-based system will not replace Iron Dome and other effective missile and drone interceptors, but will add to Israel’s air defense shield against aerial attacks. Iron Beam will be joining “Israel’s multi-layered air defense network, complementing the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow systems,” t
This Israeli breakthrough in warfare was born out of necessity. In recent years, Israel’s enemies — notably Hamas and Iran — have tried to overwhelm air defense systems, like the Iron Dome, by firing massive barrages of rockets and missiles.
Tens of thousands of missiles, rockets, and drones have been fired at Israel by Iran and its terrorist proxies since the Hamas-led October 7 massacre. “Over 30,000 rockets, missiles and various other projectiles have been fired at Israel during the course of this war,” Israel’s Ynetnews reported in June 2025.
Iron Beam has a major advantage over Iron Dome in terms of cost. While each interception by Iron Dome costs an estimated $30,000, an interception by Iron Beam will cost only about $5-10 per interception, due to the use of high energy. However, the laser has a significant decrease in effectiveness during cloudy and hazy conditions, Due to the challenges of the laser, and the different ranges, Iron Beam and Iron Dome will be deployed side by side. Iron Beam will be deployed at borders, population centers and strategic infrastructures to protect them from missiles, rockets, drones and mortars.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/12/idf-inducts-iron-beam-worlds-first-laser-air-defense-system/