by Shlomo Cesana, Yori Yalon, Daniel Siryoti, Israel Hayom Staff and Reuters
Israel's regional military clout should be preserved in terms of quantity as well as quality of its weaponry, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden says during Israel visit • Biden meets with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, discusses ongoing violence.
U.S. Vice President Joe
Biden and his family visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in
Jerusalem's Old City, Wednesday
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Photo credit: AP  |
Israel's regional military clout should be
preserved in terms of the quantity as well as the quality of its
weaponry, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Wednesday in a nod to
Israeli requests in defense aid negotiations with Washington.
Current U.S. military grants to Israel, worth
about $3 billion annually, expire in 2018. The allies want to agree on
an extension before U.S. President Barack Obama leaves office in January
2017 but have differed over the proposed sums.
Israel, which last year requested $5 billion in future annual aid but whose officials have since set their sights on $4 billion to $4.5 billion, says it needs to expand its military, rather than just upgrade technologies, given spiraling arms procurement it anticipates by arch-foe Iran and Arab states.
U.S. officials have given lower target figures
of around $3.7 billion. The dispute prompted Israeli officials to hint
last month that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in hope of better
terms, may await Obama's successor to conclude the deal.
"We're committed to making sure that Israel
can defend itself against all serious threats, maintain its qualitative
edge with a quantity sufficient to maintain that," Biden told reporters
after meeting Netanyahu during a visit to Israel.
Israel's "very, very tough neighborhood, a
tough and changing neighborhood" necessitated such assistance, Biden
said, adding that Obama had "done more to help bolster Israel's security
than any other administration in history."
He did not explicitly mention the accord on future U.S. defence aid, known as the Memorandum of Understanding.
U.S. congressional staffers said Biden would
discuss the MOU during his Israel visit, describing the vice president
as the only possible principal from the administration who could finish
off a deal given Netanyahu's troubled ties with Obama.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon travels to
Washington for talks next week with U.S. counterpart Ashton Carter.
Ya'alon aides said he would try to make progress on the MOU.
Interviewed by Israel Radio on Wednesday,
Ya'alon did not refer to the MOU but said: "There are areas in which we
know how to insist on our security interests, even when our great friend
[the United States] makes offers that do not suit us."
Later on Wednesday, Biden met with Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and discussed the ongoing
surge of Palestinian violence.
A White House statement said Biden reiterated
continuing U.S. support for "a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and urged all parties to take steps to
de-escalate tensions, uphold obligations, and prevent inflammatory
rhetoric."
At his earlier meeting with Netanyahu, Biden
condemned Tuesday's terrorist attack in Jaffa in which 29-year-old
American tourist Taylor Force was killed. At the time of the attack,
Biden was meeting with former President Shimon Peres at the Peres Center
for Peace in Jaffa.
The Jaffa attack was one of several Palestinian terrorist acts committed on Tuesday.
"Let me say in no uncertain terms, the United
States of America condemns these acts and condemns the failure to
condemn these acts," Biden said.
Biden noted that his wife Jill and their
grandchildren were dining on a beach "not very far" from where the Jaffa
attack took place.
"I don't know exactly whether it was a hundred
meters or a thousand meters," Biden said. "It brings home that it can
happen, it can happen anywhere, at any time."
Shlomo Cesana, Yori Yalon, Daniel Siryoti, Israel Hayom Staff and Reuters
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=32311
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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