A joint meeting of the Knesset’s Defense and Foreign Affairs and its Finance Committees voted Sunday by 22-6, with three abstentions and half of the committees’ members absent, to continue the Lavi project.
The surprise decision has no binding value, and can only be regarded as a suggestion to the Cabinet for next Sunday’s crucial government vote on the issue. The Israel Defense Force general headquarters and senior Defense and Finance Ministry officials expressed shock and surprise at the go-ahead vote.
Haaretz wrote Monday that the vote was received with astonishment in the defense establishment and the IDF, primarily because of the lopsidedness of the vote. Until two weeks ago it was estimated that most members of the committees opposed the plane.
Defense establishment sources claimed that Knesset members who were not present at previous meetings voted without any idea of the project’s data and significance, which were elaborated on earlier.
CONCERNED ABOUT U.S. REACTION
The sources said that a decision to continue the Lavi could bring about a sharp American reaction, which would gravely affect mutual military purchases and thus would harm the Israel defense establishment.
Meanwhile, the Finance and Defense Ministers will submit a joint proposal at the Cabinet’s next meeting for halting the project.
Earlier this year U.S. Defense Secretary Dov Zakheim spent five days in Israel trying to convince its political and military leaders that the Lavi, financed by U.S. grants, is too costly to produce. Zakheim urged the Israelis to abandon the Lavi in favor of an already tried and tested aircraft.
He proposed as options the F-16, manufactured by General Dynamics, and the F-18, each of which would be produced under license in Israel and modified by the Israelis according to their needs.
Last month Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Finance Minister Moshe Nissim concluded that the Lavi project must be abandoned for budgetary reasons. They said there was no way to increase the defense budget and without extra funds, the Lavi could not be produced. An Haaretz economic affairs correspondent quoted Rabin as saying Sunday that “in such a difficult period we must decide what are the army’s proper priorities.
“The decision must be made in light of only one thing: what wins wars. Both the Lavi and the F-16 constitute no significant change in the IDF’s deployment on the future battlefield. We require other, more important means.”
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