Barak Swipes at Netanyahu for F-35 Could-Have-Been

YERUSHALAYIM
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. (Flash90)

An extraordinary allegation made by former prime minister and defense minister Ehud Barak that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was to blame for the scuttling of a free batch of 20 F-35 stealth fighter jets from the Obama administration was denied on Thursday by former Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro.

Barak told Army Radio that the gift was cancelled due to the tense relationship between Obama and Netanyahu, especially over the latter’s campaign against the Iran nuclear agreement.

Barak claimed that while there was no official agreement for the planes, “there was pretty concrete talk with the Americans at the highest levels about the possibility.”

But in a subsequent interview on Army Radio, Dan Shapiro, who was ambassador to Israel under Obama, dismissed the story.

“The relationship between Netanyahu and Obama did not influence the F-35 deal,” Shapiro told Army Radio later on Thursday.

Shapiro said the F-35s were part of the negotiations related to the overall $38 billion, 10-year military aid package to Israel, finalized last September. It was “not connected to other arguments between us at the time.”

Barak has been a constant critic of Netanyahu since leaving politics, after serving as defense minister under him during 2009-2013. Among other things, he accused Netanyahu of bungling the negotiations, that Israel could have had a much better deal than it got in the end.

When Barak published an critical argument of the agreement, Likud responded: “The publication of an article that bashes Israel in the U.S. media on the day the largest aid deal in the history of the U.S. was signed is just further proof that Ehud Barak does not have Israel’s best interests at heart,” the party said.

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