Raging Ehud Barak claims Bibi botched US aid deal
LAST WEEK’S signing of a 10-year military aid deal between Israel and the United States, worth $38 billion, has sparked a bitter row between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and one of his predecessors.
While Mr Netanyahu thanked US President Barack Obama for the “largest aid package ever”, former prime minister Ehud Barak claimed that he had botched the agreement over the aid package which, he claimed, was much smaller than it could have been.
Mr Barak argued that the failure was the result of Mr Netanyahu intervening in American politics and harming Israel’s relations with the US.
Mr Barak gave no less than seven interviews to the Israeli media in the 24 hours following the signing of the deal and relentlessly repeated the message that “the agreement is for much less than Netanyahu is trying to present and much less than we could have received. Netanyahu’s conduct is causing heavy damage to the state”.
F o r f o u r years, from 2009 to 2013, Mr Barak was Mr Netanya- hu’s closest ally, serving as his defence minister. However, in the last few months, he has criticised him harshly in a number of public appearances and interviews. Earlier this month, posters appeared in Tel Aviv calling on Mr Barak to return to politics, although he has denied any connection to the campaign and said he had no such plans. In response to Mr Barak’s criticism, a Likud spokesperson said: “These are empty words by the most failed prime mini s t e r i n Israel’s history, who is continuing to make a l a u g h i n g s t o c k o f himself in yet another pathetic comeback attempt.”
Acting National Security Adviser Yaakov Nagel, who signed the agreement on Israel’s behalf, said that “the claim that we could have received an additional $7bn is detached from reality” and that the agreement was the “highest offer we received”. American officials confirmed Mr Netanyahu’s claim this was the highest sum on offer, but matters are not quite as clear-cut.
A year and a half ago, there were unofficial approaches from the Obama administration for Israel to sign an agreement for over $40 billion over 10 years, but Mr Netanyahu preferred to postpone the talks until after the Iran nuclear deal — which he opposed — had been signed.
Critics of the eventual aid package have also noted that while $3.8 billion is the highest annual rate of military aid ever, Israel has agreed not to request supplementary funding for other arms projects. Military experts also point to a clause in the deal which means that the slice of American money used to fund weapons development in Israel will be gradually eliminated over six years.
Netanyahu’s conduct is doing heavy damage to Israel