Can Israel dispense with America?

A report in the American newspaper The Washington Post confirmed that Israel is investing millions of dollars to produce more heavy bombs due to its growing fear of relying on its arms imports from the United States and other Western countries, even as the flow of weapons from those countries continues without stopping most of the time.

The newspaper quoted experts as saying that it will be difficult for Israel to abandon its dependence on its main ally, the United States, especially with the return of President-elect Donald Trump to power.

In an indication of its growing ambition to manufacture these bombs locally, the Israeli Ministry of Defense announced last week that it had signed deals worth $275 million to produce heavy bombs and military raw materials, which the American newspaper considered an important addition to Israel’s weapons industry.

The Washington Post revealed that Elbit Systems was chosen last week to produce heavy bombs locally. This company is among the three largest Israeli companies working in the field of weapons production, along with Israel Aerospace Industries and Rafael.

At the signing ceremony – Tuesday – Director General of the Ministry of Defense, Eyal Zamir, considered this step “a harsh lesson learned by Israel” from its wars in Gaza and Lebanon, stressing that the Israeli army “will continue to work diligently in all theaters of operations.”

According to the report, in its war on Gaza, the Israeli army used heavy bombs to level a large portion of the Palestinian Strip’s buildings and infrastructure facilities, and American companies such as Boeing provided Israel with some of those bombs.

Ephraim Inbar, head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security – an Israeli research center – said that what demonstrated Israel’s dependence on US weapons was “the war on Gaza and criticism by progressive elements in the Democratic Party” of Israel’s use of those weapons.

Inbar explained that until recently, Israel had refrained from manufacturing certain munitions primarily for profit considerations, “because it is cheaper to buy them with the money that the United States has allocated to it.”

According to the newspaper, the total security aid that the United States has provided to Israel since World War II ended has exceeded $200 billion.

Some analysts doubt Israel’s ability to accelerate the pace of its production of basic goods locally in the near future. In this regard, Seth Binder, an expert at the Center for Middle East Democracy in Washington, says that building production capabilities takes time and requires more money, noting that the United States has struggled to increase its ability to produce the munitions required globally.

The Washington Post report confirmed that Israel will continue to depend on foreign imports for much of its main equipment, such as F-35 fighter jets from the United States and submarines from Germany, to name a few. (Al Jazeera Net)