TEL AVIV, Israel—The Trump administration wants to push through within months an arms deal with the United Arab Emirates that includes the world’s most advanced warplane, the F-35, an ambitious timetable that could well be thwarted by the U.S. Congress, depending largely on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position on the sale.
Publicly, Netanyahu has said he opposes the deal, insisting that Israel’s position on Middle Eastern states acquiring such high-end weapons had not changed. But the Trump administration and Emirati officials have suggested that the F-35 sale was one of the understandings that led the UAE to normalize relations with Israel this month—in a watershed agreement brokered by Washington.
