Is Israel’s F-35 Qualitative Military Edge DOA After Saudi Announcement?

Israeli experts and politicians are reacting to news that the US may sell the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to Saudi Arabia with a mix of concern and pragmatism, with the general consensus seeming to be a cautious “wait and see.”

Experts point to two key questions: how capable the Saudi F-35s may be, and just how long their arrival may take.

The White House officially announced that it would sell the F-35, long-sought by Riyadh, to the Saudis during a Nov. 18 meeting between US President Donald Trump and Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman. Notably, Trump seemed to indicate that the Saudis would be sold the same caliber of F-35 as the Israelis operate.

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Israel’s Ynet, a major daily paper, noted that the Israeli Air Force has concerns about the F-35 deal, writing that “Air Force officials stressed that the F-35’s advanced detection, data-processing and networked systems give Israel an edge unmatched by any other country in the region.”

Breaking Defense reached out to several members of Knesset from the coalition and opposition parties and did not receive a response, except for opposition leader Yair Lapid, whose office pointed to an X post that reads, “it cannot be that because of the government’s weakness we will give up Israeli security interests and allow the F35 deal.”

Among experts and former officials more willing to talk, the Saudi news has been met with mixed responses, at best.

Yaakov Amidror, a former major general and National Security Advisor now at Washington-based Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), noted that Israel can’t realistically dictate to the US who to sell warplanes to. But, “in the end of the day we have concerns because it is clear that this plane in the hands of another country in the Middle East will be problematic, because we will lose some uniqueness we had of having this capacity and plane.”

Amidror, who is also a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS) emphasized how important QME is to Israel. “It was understood years ago that Israel is a small country with limited demography and the only way to bridge the gap of asymmetry is QME and that is technology, training and experience.”

If Trump holds true to his statement that the Saudis will get the same level of F-35 as Israel, Amidror noted that the QME could be maintained through the addition of some other capability that would give Israel an edge over the Saudis.