Trump Weighs F‑35 Sale to Turkey as Netanyahu Warns of ‘Destroyed’ Middle East Power Balance
Donald Trump is considering supplying F‑35 stealth fighters to Turkey, a move Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly denounced as one that would “destroy the power balance in the Middle East.” The dispute drags alliance politics, Israel–Turkey tensions, and NATO’s internal fractures into a single, high‑stakes argument over who controls the region’s most advanced combat aircraft.
The question of whether Turkey should regain access to the F‑35 stealth fighter has exploded into a public rift between two of Washington’s most consequential partners in the Middle East. Donald Trump is weighing the possibility of delivering F‑35s to Ankara, according to U.S. and regional reporting on 7 July, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded with unusually sharp language, warning that such a sale would "destroy the power balance in the Middle East."
Netanyahu has said he spoke with Trump "several times" about the issue and is pressing his case again as the two leaders navigate parallel relationships with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In televised comments and interviews, Netanyahu has portrayed Turkey’s current government as ideologically hostile to both Israel and the United States, referring to it as a regime "infested" with the Muslim Brotherhood and therefore unfit to operate the West’s most advanced fighter jet. The remarks go beyond standard lobbying and into an open challenge to a potential U.S. policy decision.
For Turkey, regaining a place in the F‑35 program would mark a dramatic reversal. Ankara was ejected from the consortium after acquiring Russia’s S‑400 air defense system, which Washington judged incompatible with protecting the F‑35’s sensitive technology. Turkish pilots had trained on the aircraft, and Turkish industry produced components, before the cutoff. A Trump‑backed deal would not simply fill a capability gap in Turkey’s air force; it would signal that political leverage and alignment with Washington can override earlier penalties tied to Russian defense ties.
The human and operational stakes are high across the region’s air forces. Israel currently enjoys a unique edge as the only Middle Eastern state flying the F‑35 in significant numbers, integrating the jet into strike missions, intelligence gathering and deterrence against Iran and its proxies. Gulf states, for their part, have pushed for their own F‑35 access in recent years, and any move to prioritize Turkey could rekindle debates from Abu Dhabi to Riyadh about who is trusted with the West’s premier aircraft and under what conditions.
Inside NATO, the issue cuts along multiple fault lines. European allies already worry about Ankara’s balancing act between Russia and the alliance, its veto power over expansion decisions, and its posture in the Eastern Mediterranean. Authorizing F‑35 transfers to Turkey while those disputes remain unresolved could unsettle other partners, especially Greece, which has its own security concerns about Turkish air power and airspace violations. Netanyahu has even muddied the waters by inaccurately referring to Cyprus as a NATO country in media appearances, an error that underscores how alliance branding is being pulled into domestic political arguments.
Strategically, putting F‑35s in Turkish hands would reshape airpower calculations from the Black Sea to the Levant. The aircraft’s stealth and sensor fusion capabilities would give Ankara a qualitatively different tool for surveillance and strike operations in contested areas such as northern Syria, the Aegean, and potentially over gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean. Israel’s military planners would have to account for a neighbor—already at odds with Jerusalem on Gaza, Hamas and maritime boundaries—holding the same class of fifth‑generation jet they use to maintain their qualitative military edge.
The broader pattern is that Trump is using the F‑35 question as part of a larger renegotiation of who gets what from the United States in exchange for alignment on issues like Ukraine, Iran and defense spending. Turkey’s position as NATO host this week, its willingness to engage with Trump personally, and its bargaining power on Sweden’s and other countries’ alliance trajectories give Erdoğan room to demand high‑value assets in return.
The shareable insight is straightforward: in the Middle East, a single weapons system can redraw the map of who feels safe, who feels surrounded and who feels betrayed. The F‑35 is not just an airplane; it is a political signal about who Washington trusts when it cannot be everywhere at once.
What to watch next are concrete moves beyond rhetoric: whether the U.S. administration sends formal notifications to Congress about any prospective F‑35 package for Turkey; how Israel lobbies on Capitol Hill and within NATO forums to block or condition a sale; and whether other regional states revive their own advanced fighter requests to avoid being left behind if Ankara’s bid goes ahead.
Sources
- OSINT