The US, Which Promptly Sent Air Defense Systems to Israel, Withdrew Patriot Systems from Turkey

Having largely remained inactive in the face of the war Israel has waged in Gaza for over a year killing more than 42,000 Palestinians and blocking humanitarian aid, the Biden administration wasted no time in rushing aid to Israel once vulnerabilities in the Israeli air defense system recently emerged.

A significant number of the ballistic missiles Iran launched at Israel at the beginning of the month were destroyed in the air by Israel’s air defense systems and the United States. However, the fact that some of the missiles, albeit in small numbers, penetrated and struck Israeli territory demonstrated there are indeed weaknesses in the systems, something that drew significant charges.

In fact, last Sunday, Hezbollah sent a drone past Israel’s border that continued 40 miles before striking a military base and killing four Israeli soldiers, and casting further doubt on the effectiveness of the country’s air defenses.

The realization that Israel’s air defense was vulnerable, something made clear during Iran’s missile assault in early October, pushed the U.S. to take quick action. The Biden administration sent Israel the most advanced air defense system at its disposal, known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system.

Officials stated that the U.S. sent the THAAD system to Israel along with American personnel as of Oct. 12.

Considering that Iran’s missile assault took place on Oct. 1, the speedy deployment of American support is noteworthy in every regard.

The key message of the affair is, once again, that American is showing how strong and staunch its commitment is to Israel’s security. Neither Israel’s murder of 42,000 people in indiscriminate assaults, nor its bombing of schools, hospitals and civilian settlements, nor its violation of all internationally relevant laws, nor — laws aside — its record of inhumanity and failure of conscience pose any obstacle additional U.S. military aid.

In a sense, Israel is being rewarded for its crime against humanity in killing 17,000 children with this American air defense system..

Let’s consider another provocative aspect of this situation. As America stepped in to support Israel’s air defenses, the administration also felt compelled to firmly admonish Israel, likely to deflect the problematic image being broadcast to the international community.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer calling attention to the continued worsening of humanitarian conditions in Gaza and demanded that Israel improve the situation immediately.

Blinken and Austin demanded that Israel remove the obstacles blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza within 30 days, warning that, otherwise, the U.S. might suspend certain military aid pursuant to American law.

By the time the Oct. 13 letter reached its intended audience in Israel, the installation of the THAAD system was probably almost complete.

In the wake of ineffective U.S. policy with respect to the massacres that Israel has perpetrated for a full year, calling for improvement of the humanitarian conditions in Gaza in one month introduces an intriguing element to the situation.

The fact is, however one can justify it, the month-long period will end one week after the upcoming U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5. Given that the election will be over, the Biden administration will save itself from having to take aggressive action against Israel beforehand.

In this way, the current administration has avoided having Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris confront Israel immediately before the election, something that would thus draw the wrath of the American Jewish lobby.

America’s deployment of the THAAD system to Israel is significant because it shows just how flexibly and quickly it can move to protect valued allies when necessary.

This development also provides an occasion for us to remember, in the same vein, the recent withdrawal of the Patriot air defense systems from Gaziantep, an event that caused serious conflict between Turkey and the U.S.

After the civil war exploded in Syria in 2013, the U.S. sent Patriot batteries to Turkey to bolster its air defenses. Two Patriot batteries were deployed in Gaziantep, near the Syrian border.

However, the Obama administration unilaterally decided to withdraw the missile system in August 2015, citing the need for “critical modernization upgrades” to the batteries.

Turkish leaders did not find the excuse convincing at the time. It was widely believed that the U.S. decision was caused largely by serious differences between the two countries over their policy in the Syrian civil war and which groups each country would support.

We must emphasize that this It must be emphasized that this rift coincided with a period in 2015 in which Turkey joined an international coalition against the Islamic State group and contributed air power to operations in Syria, a time when F-15 fighter jets were arriving at the Incirlik Air Base in Adana.

Also in the same year, Patriot batteries placed by Germany in Kahramanmaras and by the Netherlands in the Incirlik Air Base were withdrawn. Spain in turn sent a Patriot battery to Incirlik and continues to maintain the systems there as part of its solidarity with NATO.

Today’s article started with the United States sending its most advanced air defense system, the multilayered THAAD, to Israel. Interestingly, THAAD systems have been an issue between the U.S. and Turkey in the past.

After granting permission to establish radar in Kurecik, Malatya Province, as part of NATO’s ballistic air defense strategy in the early 2010s, Turkey requested a THAAD battery from the U.S. to protect the radar and to support its own air defense system.

It’s no secret that, while the Kurecik installation began operations in 2012, the U.S. turned Turkey down. Yet America sent THAAD batteries to South Korea in 2017 with the aim of protecting it from North Korea.

Look at where we get to when we start talking about Americans sending THAAD systems to Israel.