Special to WorldTribune.com

TEL AVIV — The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to reduce military coproduction with the United States.

A leading Israeli analyst asserted that the Defense Ministry and the military agreed to reduce production of Israeli weapons and platforms in the United States. The analyst, Amir Rapaport, said the decision was based on the U.S. suspension of arms deliveries during the 50-day war with Hamas in July and August 2014.

“The Israeli defense establishment will reduce the production of weapon systems in the USA in the context of joint Israeli-American projects, and will rely more heavily on Israeli-made products,” Rapaport, editor of the authoritative Israel Defense magazine said. “Under a veil of secrecy, a decision has already been made at the Israeli Defense Ministry not to enable the production of at least one highly sensitive weapon system on U.S. soil, despite the fact that the manufacture of the said system in the USA may be funded through U.S. defense aid instead of being paid for in shekels with Israeli taxpayer money.”

Rapaport’s assertion was published on Oct. 16 on the eve of a visit by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon to Washington. Ya’alon’s visit, hosted by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, was expected to focus on the U.S. weapons suspension, ordered by President Barack Obama.

“We mustn’t allow any disagreements to cast a pall over those interests and values,” Ya’alon said.

Israel, which receives $3.2 billion in annual American military aid, played down the U.S. suspension, saying it did not hamper the war against Hamas and its Palestinian militia allies in the Gaza Strip. But Rapaport, deemed close to the Defense Ministry and military, reported that the suspension marked a “major trauma in U.S.-Israel defense relations.”

“Things that had been taken for granted until Operation Protective Edge [the Gaza war], like the fact that Israel could always count on a U.S. airlift of ammunition in a time of trouble, are no longer certain at all,” Rapaport said.

As a result, the Defense Ministry and military plan to increase weapons production inside Israel. The plan envisioned the replacement of the U.S.-origin AGM-114 Hellfire missile with a model produced by Israel Aerospace Industries. During the war, Obama rejected an urgent Israeli request for Hellfires.

“Since Operation Protective Edge, Israeli defense industries have already received urgent procurement orders for arms and munitions worth billions of shekel,” Rapaport said. “This recent affair has led to a reassessment of the almost automatic reliance on an airlift of ammunition from the USA as a part of practically every wartime scenario.”

  Israel to reduce arms production in U.S. after Obama’s weapons suspension during Gaza War, Netanyahu, Obama, WorldTribune.com