Israeli Ministry of Defense

TEL AVIV: As the U.S carefully withdraws from the Gulf region, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region are eager to buy Israeli-made defense systems. But Israel is slow marching talks about weapons sales to this lucrative market.

The U.S military pull out from the region appears clear. The White House has ordered the the removal of some Patriot batteries from Saudi Arabia as part of the Biden administration’s apparent policy to decrease the U.S involvement in the region. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the U.S has “removed at least three Patriot anti-missile batteries from the Gulf region, including one from Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia that had been put in place in recent years to help protect American forces.”

The planned massive entry of the Israeli defense industries into the Gulf States weapons market, has been slowed down and the companies here are trying to convince the ministry of defense to change the pace.

BD could not get an official statement from the Israeli Ministry of Defense but a senior source that has been very involved in the issues and talked with BD on condition of anonymity said industry’s complaints are exaggerated: “The ministry has to take into account many issues that are not directly connected to the profit line in the annual reports of the companies.”

He added that the ministry is evaluating every import request with caution taking into account all the current and potential future risks.

Official sources who talked to BD on condition of anonymity reject the claim heard recently, that the slowdown is a result of an initiative “not to anger Washington.”

The issue has been deliberated in recent weeks in the Ministry of Defense and the top managements of the main defense companies, who have already reached out and hired representatives in the UAE, Bahrain and even Saudi Arabia.

A senior industry source added that the Israeli Ministry of Defense understands that there will not be a vacuum in the Gulf as new advanced defense systems: “Russia and China know the appetite of these countries for very advanced weapons systems”

The issue is explained by some sources by the uncertainty of what is the new administration’s policy towards Israel and the Gulf states. They point to the decision to freeze the deal to sell F-35 to the UAE and last week’s decision by President Biden to again use the term “Occupied Territories” to refer to the West Bank under Israeli control.

“Jerusalem wants to wait and understand the new policy of the Biden’s administration in the Middle East and Gulf region, before it becomes a main defense systems supplier of some Gulf states” an official source said.

The Israeli companies say the Israeli Ministry of Defense is “very slow” in dealing with the import requests. “This is not just a bureaucratic problem. On top of the ministry’s caution, the political chaos here has its impact as this issue has not been brought in an orderly way to the cabinet’s table,” one industry source said.

Israeli companies have sold defense systems to the UAE and Bahrain even before the Abraham Accords were signed, but these were mainly in the homeland security and cyber categories, not kinetic weapons.

Immediately after relations were normalized with the UAE and Bahrain, they and Saudi Arabia rushed to request purchase of Israeli-made systems.

How large might this market be for Israel? The biggest growth in arms imports in recent years was seen in the Middle East, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Middle Eastern states imported 25 per cent more major arms in 2016–20 than they did in 2011–15. Saudi Arabia increased its arms imports by 61 per cent and Qatar by 361 per cent. Arms imports by the UAE fell by 37 per cent, but several planned deliveries of major arms—including of 50 F-35 combat aircraft from the USA agreed to in 2020—suggest that the UAE will continue to import large volumes of arms.

For perspective, Israeli arms exports represented 3.0 per cent of the global total in 2016–20 and were 59 per cent higher than in 2011–15.

“The local defense people have been exposed to the systems the Israeli companies can offer and they want many of them — and fast — as Iran is casting a big shadow on them ” an industry source said.