Trump Under Pressure: Israel Demands Türkiye’s F-35 Access Denied to Protect Stealth Edge

A senior Israeli official has renewed Tel Aviv’s urgent call for President Trump to keep Türkiye locked out of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme, insisting the stakes for Israel’s survival are simply too high to gamble with.

Quoted by U.S media, the unidentified official warned that admitting Ankara back into the stealth jet club while it continues to operate the Russian S-400 system would not only undermine Israel’s qualitative military edge but could spark a dangerous shift in the Middle East’s fragile air power balance.

The warning comes as Türkiye tries to revive its suspended participation by leveraging its pivotal NATO role and President Erdoğan’s direct phone diplomacy with President Trump.

Central to Israel’s alarm is the threat posed by Türkiye’s operational Russian-made S-400 Triumf air defence system, which defence analysts say could expose the F-35’s stealth profile to Moscow.

Türkiye signed the controversial S-400 deal with Russia in 2017 for an estimated USD 2.5 billion (around RM 11.8 billion), receiving its first battery deliveries in mid-2019 despite repeated US and NATO objections.

The S-400’s high-powered radar suite is specifically engineered to detect, track and gather data on low-observable aircraft, creating a backdoor for adversaries to reverse-engineer the jet’s radar cross-section (RCS), flight patterns and electronic emissions.

Should Türkiye operate the F-35 alongside its S-400 batteries, military engineers warn that this sensitive telemetry could be harvested and transferred to Russian technicians, eroding the jet’s survivability in any future conflict against advanced air defence networks.

“Israel prefers to avoid conflict but is ready to act if needed,” the Israeli official stressed, underscoring the existential threat that stealth compromise would pose to the Israel Air Force’s current freedom of action over Syria, Lebanon and beyond.

At the heart of this clash sits the concept of the Qualitative Military Edge (QME) — a cornerstone of US-Israeli strategic trust since the 1960s that guarantees Israel always has superior military capabilities over any regional adversary.

For decades, successive US administrations — including the current Trump Administration — have upheld QME by restricting certain advanced weapon sales to Middle Eastern states that could tip the regional balance of power.

Yet Türkiye’s renewed bid to regain F-35 access threatens to punch a hole through that firewall, a scenario the anonymous Israeli official view as intolerable given Ankara’s so-called “neo-Ottoman” ambitions, its deepening ties with Hamas, and its military footprint in contested zones like northern Syria.

Turkish officials say President Erdoğan repeatedly pressed his case directly with President Trump in tense phone calls, highlighting that Türkiye’s estimated USD 9 billion (around RM 42.3 billion) F-35 investment and frontline NATO role made exclusion unacceptable — despite Washington’s alarm over the S-400’s threat to stealth security.

What makes this stand-off even more awkward is the fact that six brand-new F-35As originally built for Türkiye are now languishing in storage hangars on US soil, completed but never delivered due to the 2019 expulsion order.

Lockheed Martin has already integrated the jets into its production and logistics chains but cannot legally hand them over so long as the S-400 remains deployed on Turkish soil.

For Israel, the prospect of these stealth fighters eventually finding their way back into Turkish hands — while the S-400’s radars remain hot — is nothing short of a nightmare scenario that could upend decades of carefully constructed deterrence.

The Israeli Air Force currently operates around 50 F-35I ‘Adir’ jets, a customised variant tailored to Israel’s unique mission requirements, and plans to expand its fleet to at least 75 to maintain air superiority for decades to come.

Each F-35I costs about USD 90 million (RM 423 million), an investment that reflects just how seriously Israel treats its air dominance as a national shield rather than a mere technological advantage.

Defence insiders warn that once stealth data is compromised, it is virtually impossible to undo the damage, since radar algorithms can be updated worldwide, giving hostile states new tools to track and target assets that once flew invisible.

Such a leak would hand a priceless advantage to adversaries like Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and other regional powers actively upgrading their Russian or Chinese radar systems to detect and track Israel’s stealth-driven deep-strike operations.

Within President Trump’s circle, the dilemma remains unresolved.

Standing by Israel means keeping Türkiye shut out until it fully abandons the Russian system — an outcome Ankara has fiercely resisted.

Yet Türkiye’s strategic position on the Black Sea, its massive air force investment, and its influence on European energy routes make it a difficult ally to ignore entirely.

Capitol Hill remains largely united with Israel on this issue, with both Republican and Democrat lawmakers arguing that re-admitting Türkiye while it operates the S-400 would set a dangerous precedent for other partners eyeing Russian or Chinese air defence hardware.

One former Israeli air commander summed up the concern: “If the S-400 spies on the F-35, you’re handing over the master key to defeat the entire stealth fleet.”

For now, the six Turkish F-35s sit idle in hangars — a stark symbol of a partnership in limbo, held hostage by a radar system that Moscow insists is purely defensive but which Tel Aviv views as a dagger pointed at its technological edge.

With the Middle East’s security landscape increasingly volatile amid Iran’s expanding missile arsenal, renewed Gaza flare-ups, and the persistent threat from proxy militias on multiple fronts, Israeli strategists warn that the margin for error is narrower than ever.

Any compromise of the F-35’s stealth secrets, they argue, would hand Tehran and its allies a critical opening to erode Israel’s aerial freedom of action at precisely the moment when deterrence must be absolute.

Stealth is not just a shiny new aircraft — it is a survival tool that ensures Israel can strike first, strike deep, and strike unseen.

To compromise that edge, the Israeli official said, would be “unthinkable” in a region where the skies can turn hostile overnight.

Whether President Trump will stick to his guns under growing diplomatic pressure from Ankara remains to be seen.

But for Israel, one truth stands unshaken: QME is not negotiable — and neither is the cloak of invisibility that keeps its enemies guessing.