American F-15 fighter jets. Times of Israel/AP.
The United States has approved $20 billion in weapons sales to Israel, over the objections of progressives. Times of Israel. The majority of the sales are $18.82 billion for F-15 fighter jets, which had been objected to by the leading Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Gregory Meeks, who eventually dropped his objection. The sale will also include $774 million for tank shells, $103 million for air to air missiles, $61 million for 120mm mortar shells and $583 million for tactical vehicles. Congress could still put a hold on the sale but have given no indication that they will do so after the Biden administration promised the weapons would not be used on civilians in Gaza.
The fighter jet sales will be for the new F-15EX version of the Strike Eagle platform. The Aviationist. The Israeli versions would be called the F-15IA (Israeli Advance). In addition to the 50 new fighter jets, upgrade kits for Israeli F-15I's would be sold to upgrade them into F-15IA's. However, it will take years to complete the fighter jets and most of the package won't be complete until 2029, with the first deliveries happening in 2026.
My Comment:
It's important to note that this sale is so far into the future that it's not likely to have much of an immediate impact on the military situation in Israel. The Israelis will likely breath a sigh of relief that they haven't been completely cut off from the American arms market and will be happy to eventually receive these weapons.
So why even talk about it? Because it has fairly large implications for both the conflict with Iran and the election in 2024. Normally a weapons sale would not have that kind of impact in either case but 2024 is nothing but a strange year.
Iran first, this sale could be a major message to the Iranian government. Don't attack Israel. We are committed to defending them, to the point where even progressive in Congress didn't make up much of a stink and approved the weapons sale. Those weapons won't arrive anywhere near in time to affect any conflict against Iran, but it does show that the commitment is there.
And given that Iran has not yet struck Israel as of this writing, it may have an effect. Iran has already missed several supposed dates of the attack including the Jewish Tisha B'Av holiday, which has already passed in Israel. It's very possible that they will still launch a strike but the question now is what are they waiting for and it could be they are afraid of the United States entering the war. Time will tell if that is right now and I have to admit that I don't fully understand Iranian thinking.
The 2nd issue is probably the more relevant one as this should hurt Kamala Harris and the Democrats in 2024. Pro-Hamas Democrats are already starting to turn on Harris for comments she made to protesters at one of her events. But this sale? I think they are going to fully turn on "Holocaust" Harris because of this sale.
Why? Because they believe that these weapons will be used on "innocent" "civilians" in Gaza. This is not something that bothers me at all, but I do agree that it's pretty dumb to expect that the Israelis will avoid using these weapons how they see fit just because they made an unenforceable promise to not do so. There is no enforcement mechanism for the Israelis here that they will do what is asked of them and though I obviously disagree with the pro-Hamas camp, it's not like they don't have a point here. All of the weapons, except the air to air missiles, would be useful in the Gaza war.
Of course this could be an effort to get Jewish voters back on board, but it might be too late for that. After all Harris picked Tim Walz instead of Josh Shapiro pretty much only because Shapiro is Jewish. Will a major arms sale to Israel bring some of those folks back on board? Maybe but given that the pro-Hamas camp is not going to be happy, any gained voters will be again lost with progressives abandoning her.
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