Former IDF Intelligence chief warns US: Selling Saudi Arabia F-35s endangers ties with Israel

Tamir Hayman said Israel’s “long-term relations with the US are in … grave danger.”

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

US President Donald Trump’s plan to move advanced F-35 aircraft to Saudi Arabia without tying the sale to normalization with Israel sparked sharp concern from a former senior Israeli defense official on Wednesday. He warned that the strategic assumptions guiding decades of cooperation with Washington may be shifting.

Addressing the UVID Drone Tech conference in Tel Aviv, Tamir Hayman, previously the IDF’s intelligence chief and now head of the Institute for National Security Studies, told attendees that Israel’s traditionally stable partnership with the United States is facing strains that go far beyond the immediate moment.

“Longterm relations with the US are in … grave danger,” he said, arguing that bipartisan backing for Israel has weakened to a degree that threatens multiple pillars of the alliance.

Hayman said he views recent developments as evidence that Israel may no longer be central to American policy in the region.

He noted that the White House meeting earlier this month between Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman signaled a reconfigured regional map. The longstanding assumption that military coordination with Washington required maintaining Israel’s qualitative edge has been challenged, he said, ever since Trump remarked that Riyadh should receive aircraft with “the same quality” as those supplied to Israel.

“This is surprising because we are in the era of great relations with Trump,” he said, cautioning that domestic shifts in the US have turned Israel into a political flashpoint.

He said that if strategic norms can change during a period of strong ties, outcomes could be far harsher under a future administration “less supportive of Israel.”

Turning to Iran, Hayman said Israel may again face a situation in which a direct strike is unavoidable if Tehran revives its nuclear program.

He called the June attack on Iranian nuclear sites a major operational achievement but emphasized that it “didn’t change the leadership of Iran,” which he described as persistent and hostile. He urged the government to push Trump to reach a new nuclear agreement during his remaining term, warning that a successor might rush into an inferior arrangement.

Hayman also said Israel should anticipate further confrontation with Hezbollah, cautioning that repeated cycles of violence could reemerge unless diplomatic pressure halts the group’s rearmament effort.

F-35Saudi ArabiaUS-Israel relations