Knesset Panel to Enter Lavi Fray

The Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee will join the Cabinet debate over the future of the Lavi project, and a long joint session with the Finance Committee is also anticipated, Yediot Achronot reported Tuesday.

The Cabinet has already held three sessions devoted to the Lav, Israel’s second-generation jet fighter plane. Officials of the Defense Ministry and senior Israel Defense Force officers participated in the meeting last Sunday. The IDF has charged the Lavi is diverting funds from other advanced weapons systems urgently needed to maintain Israel’s qualitative edge in a future war. Yossi Sarid, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, was quoted by Yediot Achronot as saying it was his responsibility as a Knesset member to inform the public what weapons are not being developed and produced because of the Lavi.

Premier Yitzhak Shamir, who supported the project until now, was stunned by facts presented by the IDF and the Finance Ministry, the paper said. According to a classified document presented to the Premier, the final cost of the Lavi will be double that of the American-made F-16c’s.

The document, acquired by MK Dedi Tzuker, said new taxes would have to be imposed if the Lavi gets the green light from the government.

It estimates the cost of halting the project now would not exceed $400 million, Yediot Achronot reported.

Hadashot meanwhile quoted a senior defense source as saying that the IDF General Staff is not making prudent use of U.S. military aid to Israel. According to the source, some $300 million of the budget remains unused at the New York office of the Defense Ministry’s procurement delegation.

The delegation has been waiting for months for instructions from the IDF while the funds remain in the “frozen assets” section of the budget, the paper claimed.