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April 21, 2025 - Epoch Times
22:35
Iranian Terrorism is as much an Enemy to Arab Nations as it is to America and Israel: Yoram Ettinger
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More and more Iranian-supported anti-American Islamic terror cells are established on U.S. soil with the aim of eliminating key American personnel and institutions and installations.
This has been the Ayatollah's vision from day one.
Ambassador Yuram Ettinger held a number of high-profile positions within Israel's government, from its Minister of Congressional Affairs in D.C. to director of its press office.
A now-retired insider and expert on U.S.-Israel relations, he regularly advises Israel and America's legislators and produces a weekly newsletter challenging conventional wisdom on Middle East affairs.
The State Department still is under the delusion that the U.S. has a choice between
Arab countries that abide by human rights and Arab countries that do not abide by human rights.
The choices between pro-American Arab regimes that violate human rights or anti-American Arab regimes that violate human rights.
In this episode we dive into key realities of the U.S.-Israel relationship that are poorly understood and the threat to both countries and free nations more broadly I often hear the Israeli-US relationship as characterized by Israel
having this inordinate influence over American decision-making.
How do you view the US-Israel relationship?
Well, US-Israel relations has two sets of foundations.
The first one has to do with the US culture, US political system, which are based largely On biblical values and biblical legacies, mostly what the Founding Fathers referred to as the mosaic legacy.
And it goes back...
To the arrival of the early pilgrims in 1620, before the first Jew arrived to this country, before the first Jewish community was established here, it had to do with the fact that the early pilgrims and the founding fathers...
To a large extent viewed themselves as the modern-day chosen people.
They viewed this country as the modern-day promised land.
And they considered the manner in which Moses governed the Jewish people to be a foundation for the system which they established, the separation of powers.
Later on, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
This is one set of foundation.
The more modern set of foundation has to do with the critical role played by Israel in advancing the strategic interest of the U.S. in the Middle East and beyond.
It has to do with Israel's capabilities.
Mostly technological, defense and commercial capabilities, which have transformed Israel into the number one innovation center for the U.S. commercial high-tech and for the U.S. defense high-tech.
Ever since 1967, Israel was transformed from a misperceived burden and liability upon the US into a strategic asset.
And more so, a force multiplier for the U.S., a dollar multiplier for the U.S., and in very concrete terms, battle-tested laboratory for the U.S. defense industry and U.S. aerospace industry,
as it has been for many, many years.
Israel receives very critical military systems without which we...
We wouldn't be able to make ends meet and for which we are immensely grateful.
However, this is not a one-way street relations where the US gives and Israel receives.
It's a mutually beneficial two-way street.
Whereby Israel receives those military systems and use it in a most intense manner, way, way beyond the manner which American military forces are using American military system.
And as a result of that intense use of the F-35 and the F-16 and the F-15 and the missile launchers and the missiles and the tanks and arms, We have concluded a multitude of lessons.
All of which we share with American manufacturers, which integrate those lessons as upgrades into the next generation of the American military hardware.
I visited the plant in Fort Worth, Texas, Lockheed Martin plant, which manufactures the F-35 and the F-16.
And one of the plant manager...
Indicated that there is an Israeli team on location receiving every single day lessons learned by Israeli pilots.
Operational lessons, maintenance and repairs.
And those lessons are integrated.
For instance, the cockpit of the F-16 is roughly 50% based on Israeli lessons.
The firing control of the F-16 75% developed based on the Israeli lessons.
And he said that there are hundreds, hundreds of such upgrades which are derivative of the Israeli lessons.
When I asked him if he could attach a dollar value to those upgrades, his response, and it's a quote.
Mega billion dollar bonanza to the manufacturer.
I asked him, how do you arrive at such an amazing number?
Is it based on some facts?
And his response was that the Israeli lessons shared with the manufacturer saves Lockheed Martin between 10 and 20 years of research and development.
And anyone who knows anything about the cost of research and development of combat aircraft knows that by itself.
It amounts to many billions of dollars.
However, that's only the first stage of the benefits accorded by Israel to the manufacture of the F-35 and the F-16, because due to those upgrades...
It has enhanced the competitiveness of the F-35 and the F-16 in the global competition, in the global market, and that has generated much more export,
which again amounts to billions of dollars.
I never visited the Boeing plant in St. Louis, Missouri, the F-15, which again we receive from the U.S. And we use in Israel.
But I assume that similar megabillion dollar is also the share of Boeing in this mutually beneficial two-way street type of relations.
And we enjoy, we benefit from hundreds of American military systems.
each one we use intensely in what I would call this structure of battle-tested laboratory and that underscores the fact that
it's a two-way street not a one-way street type of relationship.
And Yeram one quick sec we're going to
And we're back with author of the Ettinger Report, Yoram Ettinger.
So one of the things I've been hearing a lot about lately, about the U.S., let's call it the military-industrial complex, is that it's bloated.
There's too much money being fed into middlemen, places that it actually doesn't need to go, it's not pared down.
What you're describing, I mean, it could be characterized as You know, money coming from the U.S. taxpayer into Israel that then goes into the defense industrial complex.
Would that be an accurate way to portray it?
First of all, money does not reach Israel.
We get credit.
To buy American products.
And we get those American products and we return much more than the value of the products which we receive.
We're talking about a defense industry which employs about 3.5 million people in addition to subcontractors.
The Israeli contribution or the Israeli lessons shared with the manufacturers not only save billions of research and development costs, not only increase...
Exports by billions of dollars, but also expand employment in the United States.
In fact, we cannot buy Israeli products with a credit which is extended by the U.S. We must buy American product.
But that's only part of the contribution by Israel to American defense, national security.
We provide the U.S. with...
The scope of intelligence, intelligence encountering terrorism, which has spared many American lives.
We're intercepting Islamic terror attacks on Americans in Syria, Americans in Jordan, Americans in Iraq.
We provide Americans intelligence on enemy and rivals' military systems.
We have enemies in the Middle East who use Chinese and Russian and British and French and Italian and other military systems following every clash we share with the Americans.
Our own findings about those military systems, which once again has enhanced the quality of the American military product, but also has spared American lives.
In fact, a former head of the U.S. Air Force Intelligence, General George Keegan, who was very enthusiastic about expanding intelligence cooperation between the two countries.
claimed that if the U.S. were to procure on its own the intelligence which the U.S. receives from Israel,
This is one heck of return on investment, which is 400 or 500 times of what we get annually in what is...
Wrongly referred to as foreign aid, while in fact it's an American investment in Israel.
We are located in a very critical area.
The late General Alexander Haig, who was Supreme Commander of NATO, later on Secretary of State, suggested that for him Israel constitutes the largest American aircraft carrier,
which does not require a single American on board, cannot be sunk and is deployed in a most crucial
A critical area between the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, between Europe and Asia and Africa.
Situated in an area which is the number one epicenter of anti-American terrorism and anti-American drug trafficking.
And the late Alexander Haig suggested that if there would not be a Jewish state in the Middle East, then the U.S. would have to manufacture a few more real aircraft carriers, deploy them to the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean,
In addition to few ground divisions deployed to the Middle East, all of which would have cost the American taxpayer between...
10 and 20 billion dollars annually, all of which is spared by the existence of Israel and the capabilities of Israel in the Middle East.
We have done the same thing when it comes to the commercial high-tech in America, some 250.
Giant, high-tech corporations have established in Israel research and development centers, leveraging the very unique brainpower in Israel, which has sustained American leadership,
global leadership in the area of high-tech.
Recently, the CEO of Intel said, if not our research and development centers in Israel, we, Intel, would have been decimated by the global competition.
CEO of Microsoft said that by the day Microsoft becomes increasingly an Israeli company because of the impact of the research and development centers in Israel.
The same applies to irrigation where we collaborate closely with American companies.
The same applies to agriculture.
The same applies to health and medicine.
There has been very, very tight collaboration between American and Israeli institutions and companies.
Israel obviously has benefited.
From the number one country in the world.
But at the same time, our unique challenges have produced a multitude of innovations, groundbreaking applications, most of which we have shared with Americans,
maintaining Americans' global leadership in the area of high-tech, which employs many, many millions.
How would you respond to, and there are a number of prominent voices that believe this, that it's actually America's relationship with Israel that's keeping America in the region?
Well, the US has been interested in the Middle East before there was a Jewish state, but more than that...
Islamic terrorism, which is centered in the Middle East, has They targeted the USA irrespective of US relations with Israel, irrespective of US policy.
Islamic terrorism and other enemies of the US do not consider Israel to be the number one influence on their policy.
They view Israel as the vanguard of the US in the Middle East.
They view Israel, and rightly so, as the most effective U.S. beachhead in the Middle East.
Iran's Ayatollahs refer to Israel as the little Satan, while referring to the U.S. as the great American Satan, which tells us about the...
There's no zero-sum game between US relations with Israel and US relations with Arabs.
Namely, supposedly, ostensibly, the US is losing Arab favors the more it gets closer to Israel.
The fact is that the US has maintained very productive relations with Israel.
And at the same time, very productive relations with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan.
And all these countries, in fact, have considered Israel to be an asset rather than a liability for the Saudis and the Emiratis and Bahrain and also Egypt and Jordan.
Israel has been regarded as a power of deterrence.
In the face of the threat posed by Iran's Ayatollah and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Saudis and the Emiratis and Bahrain have the machetes of the Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood at their throat.
And they look around and ask themselves, who can we rely on?
Well, sometimes they can rely on the U.S. depending on the tenant.
Does the tenant try to appease the Ayatollahs or is the tenant facing the Ayatollahs very decisively?
So the U.S. sometimes is reliable as far as they are concerned, sometimes not so reliable.
They have written off the Europeans because the Europeans have lost their will to flex a muscle against Islamic Every single relatively moderate Arab regime has the machetes of terrorists at their throat.
The only country upon which they can rely to an extent has been Israel.
And therefore, American ties with Israel are not at the expense of America.
American ties with the Arabs because the Arabs realize Israel serves as a major line of defense of the Hashemite regime in Jordan, the pro-American Hashemite regime in Jordan.
Israel has developed Pretty close defense ties with Saudi Arabia.
The same goes for the King of Morocco, who highly respects Israel's capabilities in combating terrorism.
And the bottom line is that when it comes to facing Islamic terrorism, U.S. and Israel and the pro-U.S.
Arab countries are facing a mutual enemy.
Well, Yoram, this has been an absolutely fascinating discussion.
A final thought as we finish?
A final thought, as I have always believed, it's incumbent upon Western policymakers.
To refrain from sacrificing the inconvenient, frustrating reality on the altar of very convenient, very appealing alternate reality.
Because alternate reality has led the world to disasters, as we saw in the pre-Second World War, as we have seen in the...
pre-ascension of the Ayatollahs to power in Iran, the Western world would be better off sticking with inconvenient reality.
Well, Yoram Ettinger, it's such a pleasure to have had you on.
Thank you very much.
My pleasure and my certainly deep satisfaction.
Thank you all for joining Yeram Ettinger and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders.
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