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Saturday, November 15, 2025
Israel wants F-35 sale to Saudis conditioned on normalization — report
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Israel does not object to the United States supplying Saudi Arabia with F-35 stealth fighter jets but insists that any transfer of such advanced aircraft be conditioned on the normalization of relations between Riyadh and Jerusalem, Channel 12 and Axios report.
The report, by journalist Barak Ravid, cites two Israeli sources involved in the matter who state that Jerusalem views Saudi Arabia obtaining the jets differently than it does with countries such as Turkey, which has sought them to make up ground on regional rivals such as Israel.
“We told the Trump administration that the supply of F-35s to Saudi Arabia needs to be subject to Saudi normalization with Israel,” Axios quotes an Israeli official stating, insisting that not conditioning the sale on diplomatic progress between the two nations would be “counterproductive.”
“Unlike the supply of F-35s to Turkey that we strongly oppose, we are less concerned about such a weapons system in Saudi Arabia if it’s part of a regional security cooperation as part of the Abraham Accords, like we have with the United Arab Emirates,” Axios quotes a second official as saying.
Israel has expressed concern in the past over the potential sale of the advanced F-35 fighter jets to nearby countries, as it is anxious to preserve its qualitative military edge in the region. Today, Israel is the only country in the Middle East with F-35s in its arsenal, currently operating 45 of the aircraft with another 30 units on order.
“It takes minutes for an F-35 to fly from Saudi Arabia to Israel,” one of the officials tells Axios, insisting that Israel requires that any Saudi F-35s not be stationed in the west of the country.
On Friday, US President Donald Trump said that he was considering agreeing to a deal to supply Saudi Arabia with the jets, several days ahead of a planned trip by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. They are expected to sign economic and defense agreements.
Trump repeated that he hopes Saudi Arabia will soon join the Abraham Accords, which have normalized relations between Israel and Muslim-majority nations. Riyadh has resisted such a step absence of an agreement on a roadmap to Palestinian statehood.
Reuters contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.