U.S. Senate unsuccessful in stopping U.S-UAE arms deal over F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

WASHINGTON – Pending the approaching handover date of power to the new Biden administration, Democratic senators proposed a draft resolution to prevent the delivery of the advanced F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, drones, and technical data to the United Arab Emirates from moving forward. Democratic senators failed to pass the resolution asking for “congressional disapproval of the proposed foreign military sale to the UAE of certain defense articles and services”. On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled senate voted 47 against 49 in favor of the Trump administration’s intended arms sale to the United Arab Emirates.

Critics of the deal said the Trump administration agreed to hastily to the arms deal with UAE without providing the senate sufficient assurances the weapons would not fall into the wrong hands or would not increase instability in the Middle East. Some senators criticized the UAE for its involvement in the Yemen war which has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations.

Democrat Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who heads the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, warned that approving the deal would trigger a big arms race, and other countries would ask for the warplanes. Qatar was already pushing for the purchase of F-35 warplanes, he added. Opposing the Democrat resolution, Republican senator Roy Blunt for Missouri said the sale of the weapons to UAE would support job creation for Americans and provide support to friends of the U.S. facing common enemies and moving the region in a better direction.

BREAKING: Congress Fails to Block F-35 ✈️ & drone sales to #UAE

• 47-49 F-35 ; 46-50 Drones
• First Arab country to acquire F35
• Second in MidEast after Israel
• $23 Billion sale
• 3 months after Abraham accords https://t.co/yiTOWz8gi3

— Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) December 9, 2020

The U.S.-UAE arms deal came about after the Abraham reconciliation agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel. As announced on Thursday, the latest country to normalize relations with Israel is Morocco. Often such agreements involve trade-offs which is also the case here. The U.S. and Morocco will sign a USD 1 billion arms deal involving drones and precision-guided weapons, Reuters reports.

Most important part of the deal for the Moroccan King Mohammed VI is that the U.S. will recognize Moroccan sovereign claims over the disputed territory of Western Sahara. U.S. recognition is a major setback for the Polisario Front and the local Sahrawi people, which fought a war for independence from 1975 to 1991 in the Western Sahara.

According to Die Welt correspondent Alfred Hackensberger, the Moroccan-Israeli deal is not that sensational, Morocco and Israel have had good relations for decades and are historically linked. Morocco had a big Jewish community in the past and Jews were well-treated and protected by the state. The countries’ intelligence services work together continuously and Morocco recently bought drones from Israel. Morocco also already has contact offices in Israel, although not an official embassy.

Seems that the big loser of ‘normalization’ and keeping Israel safe, are the indigenous Sahrawi people of the Western Sahara.