US: Funding ’Israeli’ Missile System would Reduce Developing Own!

Local Editor

The US administration said on Wednesday that its threat to veto a Congressional proposal to increase funding for "Israeli" missiles reflects merely a disagreement over the proper legislative vehicle for allocating this aid.

Meanwhile, the White House believes funding the "Israeli" missiles should be included in the 10-year military aid agreement both sides are now negotiating, and not in the 2017 budget, as Congress proposed, senior administration officials explained. This would also be better for "Israel," they argued, because it would obviate the need for Congress and the administration to renegotiate the sum every year.

In this regard, a senior White House official said: "We are prepared to make an unprecedented multi-year missile commitment as part of a new Memorandum of Understanding [MOU] with "Israel" on military assistance," adding that "this commitment, which would amount to billions of dollars over 10 years, would be the first long-term pledge on missile support to "Israel," affording it robust support for its missile system, as well as predictability and facilitating long-term planning for missile initiatives."

Relatively, the officials said the sum the administration had proposed for "Israeli" missiles in the 2017 budget was adequate. Moreover, they said, the extra $455 million that Congress was seeking to add would force the United States to cut back significantly on its own missile development.

In this respect, an official explained that the money for "Israeli" missiles comes from the same budget as the money for American missiles. Therefore, increased funding for "Israel" would reduce the amount of money available for developing "critical" American missile systems, at a time when the missile threat against the US from North Korea is only growing, he said.

The bilateral negotiations on a new military aid deal for the next decade are approaching the moment of decision, and several disagreements between the parties remain unresolved. Senior "Israeli" and American officials both said that the talks have almost completely exhausted their usefulness, and within a few weeks, Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have to decide whether to sign the deal offered by US President Barack Obama or not.

Source: Haaretz, Edited by website team