QME: Why Israel Doesn’t Want Turkey Getting The F-35 Stealth Fighter

A recent report revealed what many have long suspected: Israel does not want Turkey to acquire the American F-35 Lightning II and has quietly lobbied Washington against selling Ankara the fifth-generation stealth strike fighter. There are several reasons Israel doesn’t want the only Middle Eastern member of NATO acquiring the sophisticated aircraft, foremost among them preserving its qualitative military edge over a heavyweight regional power it’s increasingly at odds with, especially in Syria.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been privately lobbying U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio against any potential F-35 sale to Turkey, Middle East Eye recently reported.

Turkey was previously a member of the Joint Strike Fighter program but was suspended and banned from buying any F-35s after it received S-400 Triumf air defense missile systems from Russia in 2019. It also had American sanctions slapped on its military industry the following year. Until 2019, Ankara sought 100 F-35s. Today it seeks 40.

Ankara hopes the new Trump administration will lift the ban by compromising over Turkey’s possession of those strategic Russian missiles. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has already dangled the prospect of $20 billion worth of arms purchases from the U.S. if Washington lifts sanctions and the F-35 ban.

Israel’s opposition could become a significant additional factor, even if the U.S. and Turkey reach some solution over the S-400.

Israel-Turkey relations deteriorated in 2010 after Israeli naval commandos intercepted a humanitarian flotilla attempting to breach the blockade on the Gaza Strip. Nine activists, eight of them Turkish nationals and one Turkish-American, were killed in the ensuing clash. While relations later thawed, the Gaza war following the infamous October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel saw them reach their lowest and tensest point ever.

Israel and Turkey are directly at odds over post-Assad Syria, where Turkey wants to deploy military forces at the invitation of the new government in Damascus, which Israel perceives as a potential threat. Israel has demonstrated its opposition by bombing the same Syrian airbases where Turkey plans on deploying long-range drones and air defenses.

The two countries are currently negotiating in Azerbaijan, seeking a de-confliction arrangement, perhaps not unlike the one Israel previously established with the Russian military after it intervened in Syria at Assad’s invitation in 2015. Both of them want to avoid potential clashes between their powerful militaries in Syria. Still, Israel views Turkey establishing a military foothold in central Syria as a strategic threat, meaning tensions may persist even if there is an effective deconfliction mechanism in place.

Before the Mavi Marmara incident, Israel-Turkey relations were cordial. In the 1990s and 2000s, Israeli technicians modernized Turkey’s older American F-4 Phantom II fighter jets, which are still in service, and M60 Patton tanks. Turkey allowed Israeli fighter pilots to train in its airspace. Even earlier, Israel had long had friendly ties with Turkey under its Alliance of the Periphery doctrine dating back to the 1950s, in which it sought relations and strategic ties with non-Arab countries around the Middle East. Aside from Turkey, pre-revolutionary Iran was also an ally under the rule of the last Shah.

Consequently, Israel did not see the Shah’s Iran acquiring advanced fourth-generation American F-14 Tomcat fighters in the 1970s nor Turkey modernizing its air force with F-16s in the late 1980s as a threat. In those days, it was much more concerned about losing its qualitative military edge over Arab countries in its immediate vicinity.

Following the landmark 1979 Egypt-Israel peace agreement, Cairo became a regular recipient of American aid and large quantities of American-made military hardware. However, even though Egypt established a lasting cold peace with Israel, Washington never supplied it with systems or weapons as advanced as those it sold Israel. So, even as Egypt gradually amassed the fourth largest fleet of F-16s worldwide, it wasn’t allowed to buy the long-range AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles that Israel could and did. Furthermore, the U.S. consistently declined Cairo’s requests for the F-15 due to an understanding with Israel. There were signs in recent years that the U.S. may finally sell Egypt that fighter, but it only came after Israel began fielding a sizable fleet of fifth-generation F-35 Lightning IIs, which Cairo, of course, cannot buy. Unlike Egypt, Turkey could long buy “tier 1” U.S. weaponry, including F-35s before the 2019 ban.

There were notable exceptions in which Washington disregarded Israeli fears of its QME being undermined. Despite repeated Israeli objections, the U.S. sold Saudi Arabia F-15s and Boeing E-3 Sentry airborne early warning and control aircraft in the 1970s and 1980s. Washington even sold the United Arab Emirates a more advanced version of the F-16, the Block 60 Desert Falcon, than the ones flown by the U.S. Air Force in the 1990s, an unprecedented move at the time.

When Israel protested a proposed sale of F-16s to Saudi Arabia in 1997, Riyadh angrily responded by canceling that multi-billion dollar deal before it got off the ground. Preserving Israel’s QME in the region became law in the United States in 2008.

In a sign of how things have changed, Israel today is demonstrably more concerned about the non-Arab periphery powers of Iran and Turkey than the Arab states of the Middle East. While it briefly objected to the prospect of the UAE getting F-35s after Abu Dhabi established diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020, it’s doubtful Israel would view such an acquisition as a serious threat. Israel did little to oppose Saudi Arabia acquiring some of the most advanced F-15s available in the 2010s, especially compared to its much more vocal protests over those Saudi fighter acquisitions in the 1980s and 1990s.

Israel strongly opposed Russia selling S-300 air defenses to Iran in the 2010s and later targeted several of those strategic systems in its two 2024 strikes on Iran. It’s undoubtedly displeased about Iran’s possible upcoming acquisition of fourth-generation Russian Su-35 Flanker fighter jets.

And now it’s confirmed that Israel currently opposes another former periphery ally acquiring a sophisticated weapons system, this time from its main ally and backer.

Some Israeli intelligence and military sources have warned Turkey could become an even more significant strategic and security threat to Israel than Iran. “The threat from Syria could evolve into something even more dangerous than the Iranian threat,” the Israeli government-established Nagel Committee declared this January.

Israel severely weakened Iran’s various militia proxies throughout the Middle East since the onset of the Gaza war in 2023. Furthermore, Iran lost another vital ally when the pro-Turkey forces deposed the Assad regime in December 2024 and expelled Iranians from Syria. With Turkey planning to deploy its military in its northern neighbor at the invitation of those new Islamist-rooted factions in power, more in Israel likely agree with assessments like the Nagel Committee’s than might have a mere year ago.

Unlike Egypt, Israel never fought a war with Turkey. While that may remain the case, Israel evidently believes its QME could become undermined if Ankara acquires F-35s or any other capabilities that could equal or surpass the Israeli military’s present technological advantage over its Turkish counterpart. Whether the Trump administration will ultimately agree with that perspective remains to be seen.