Amid questions over his decision to push through a deal to buy three new German submarines, Prime Minister Benjamin Netnayhau says Israel needs the vessels in order to ward off military threats made against the country.
“The IDF has become one of the strongest and most advanced army in the world,” Netanyahu says at a memorial service for Israel’s first prime minister David Ben-Gurion. “Anyone that makes threats against our existence places themselves in grave danger.That’s why we are arming ourselves with F35 fighter jets, submarines, cyber [warfare] and defensive mechanisms such as Iron Dome.”
Last month it emerged that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s personal lawyer worked as a representative of the German company in Israel, in what may constitute a grave conflict of interest. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has ordered the police to look into allegations that David Shimron used his close relationship with the premier to push Israel to purchase several submarines from ThyssenKrupp, award the company a contract for naval vessels to defend Israel’s gas fields, and allow it to build a shipyard in Israel.
Benjamin Netanyahu touring the INS Tanin submarine, built by the German firm ThyssenKrupp, as it arrived in Israel on September 23, 2014. (Kobi Gideon/GPO/Flash90)
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman shrugged off on Wednesday recent reports detailing the partial Iranian ownership of ThyssenKrupp, saying that “the issue was already known.”
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