Military relations between Israel and China are a constant source of friction between Jerusalem and Washington. The military establishments of the two countries have learned to live with it, even when the situation worsens, as has happened in recent weeks with the widely publicized US anger over Israel’s ostensible agreement to upgrade spare parts for the Harpy unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Israel Aircraft Industries previously sold the Harpy to China.
”It’s not pleasant, but it’s not so bad,” an Israeli defense analyst with an intimate knowledge of Israel-US defense ties told “Globes”. He suggests that the UAV parts upgrade affair be regarded in the proper proportion, and that there is no need to get excited about commentary comparing the current dispute with the major crisis over the Israel sale of Phalcon early warning planes to China.
The Phalcon crisis ended in 2000, when Israel was forced by a US ultimatum to cancel its $2 billion sale without warning. This surrender damaged relations between Beijing and Jerusalem, and these relations began warming again only in 2004.
”If the Phalcon was a tsunami in relations between Israel and the US Department of Defense, the wave from the UAV upgrade affair has barely reached the beach,” the analyst commented. He added that what had inflated the current dispute far in excess of its importance was a personal grudge between key individuals in Israel-US defense relations.
Maintenance or upgrade?
The analyst did not specify who he was talking about. It was recently reported, however, that antagonism existed between US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and Israel Ministry of Defense director general Amos Yaron. Feith, the number three man in the US Department of Defense, is Israel’s main liaison to the Pentagon.
Reports say that Feith was incensed after he said that he learned that Israel, or, to be precise, Yaron himself, had misled Feith by withholding details of the UAV deal with China. This contravened an explicit Israel commitment to completely disclose its military relations with China.
Defense sources in Washington told “Globes” in December that Israel had sold UAVs to China in the mid-1990s, with the consent of the US (another source said that the consent was with gritted teeth). According to UPI, several dozen UAVs were involved. Some time later, Israel sold China spare parts for maintaining the UAVs, without bothering to inform the Pentagon, assuming that the same UAVs were involved, whose export the US had already approved.
The Department of Defense, especially Feith (and according to several versions, also US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz), assert that the parts amount to a significant upgrade of the UAVs, which will give them new capabilities. The claim is that Israel should have notified the US of the planned upgrade. Matters may have deteriorated to a personal grudge, but media publicity has given the dispute cosmic dimensions. For example, Channel 2 reported last month, that Feith had demanded that Israel dismiss Yaron. In response to a question from “Globes”, the Defense Department denied this on December 16, although it did not deny the existence of a dispute. Defense Department spokesperson Brian Whitman said that weapons sales to China should not regarded as a personal issue, and that the US did not tell other countries who their officials should be.
”Just a few spare parts”
”Without personal hostility, and had contact with the US been conducted through the usual channels, this affair would have ended a long time ago,” the analyst said this week. “Only a few small, unimportant spare parts are involved. Supplying them doesn’t constitute an upgrade. The systems are now dealing with personal questions who said what to whom, and when not matters of substance.”
The analyst, who is personally acquainted with the people involved, says that what is now taking place is a childish spat, and the two systems have had to look on from the side, without being able to separate the two parties. “Had the parties gone to an international court, the judges would have fined them for wasting the court’s time on nonsense,” he says.
At the same time, the two systems have been careful not to allow the dispute to boil over, as this would constitute a genuine risk. It is true that a Pentagon delegation, due to visit Israel in December has had to cancel its visit because it demanded not to meet with Yaron. The Ministry of Defense, with the full backing of Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz, absolutely refused this demand. “Important visits, however, are still taking place far from the media,” the analyst states. “Security cooperation between the two countries is continuing. Relations have not been affected.”
Believe the Ministry of Defense
The analyst says that while the unpleasantness is significant, neither Israel nor the US will allow it to harm relations. In contrast to the Phalcon deal, which spilled over into the White House and the US Department of State, the UAV affair has been confined to the Department of Defense and the Ministry of Defense, where it will remain.
Various sources directly or indirectly involved in the dispute are apt to use psychological warfare, such as Tuesday’s leak to AP that Israel had decided to accept the US demand not to give China the parts. Ministry of Defense sources denied the report. “Believe the Ministry of Defense,” the analyst said.
The analyst predicted that the affair would continue to simmer on a low flame as long as the main protagonists continued in their current positions. Washington sources said that Wolfowitz and Faith’s jobs were secure as long as their patron, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, stays in office.
Diplomatic circles are inclined to believe that the White House is giving Rumsfeld one more year in his job. The analyst says that Yaron is not going anywhere in the upcoming months. Talk about his resignation is premature. The anger will probably abate within six weeks, even if the dispute itself does not.
Threat of US punishment
US sensitivity to arms sales to China is obviously not a question of personal friction. The US has been concerned for years about arms sales and military technology transfers to China. The Pentagon mantra is that the US is giving its allies, including Israel, incentives to exercise care and responsibility in weapons trading with China. The US is worried about the possible effect of arms sales to China on the safety of US soldiers in the Taiwan straits, a potential battlefield between the Chinese armed forces and those of its “rebellious province”, Taiwan, to whose defense the US is committed. Upgrading Chinese nuclear weapons, or developing any other weapons of mass destruction, or means of launching them, is a source of constant concern in Washington.
A 2004 report on economic and defense relations between China and the US commissioned by Congress recommends that the administration adopt punitive measures against foreign defense industries selling arms or military technologies to China. The recommendation includes limiting participation by such foreign defense industries in projects for developing and manufacturing arms in the US.
This whip has not yet been brandished over Israeli defense industries, but Israel is well aware that Pentagon heads are angry about what they regard as Israeli deviations from US rules in deals with China. The UAV deal may have been exaggerated, and the antipathy between Yaron and Feith may be out of place, but the problem of military relations between Israel and China will continue to constitute a source of friction between Jerusalem and Washington long after Feith and Yaron leave government service.
No response from a Pentagon spokesperson was available as of web posting.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on January 13, 2005