"Globes" has learned that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) rejected an offer by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) for purchasing new naval reconnaissance airplanes to replace IAI-manufactured Westwind airplanes, which are being phased out.
IAI offered to sell the Israeli Navy Astra airplanes, which have been supplied in to armed forces around the world in recent years for reconnaissance missions. The IDF preferred to purchase the King-Air 200 airplanes manufactured by Raytheon of the US.
Industrial and economic sources close to IAI said, "All the company's efforts to supply airplanes to the IDF to replace IAI's old airplanes have come to naught. The IDF has decided not to acquire Israeli-manufactured airplanes, but to buy US airplanes using US military aid funds."
The Astra airplanes are jointly manufactured by IAI and Galaxy-Eurospace, which is owned by US Pritzker family. Most of the executive airplanes of this type are manufactured in the US, while all the airplanes for special missions and military functions, such as surveillance, coastal reconnaissance, and intelligence, are manufactured in Israel. This fact prevented IAI and Pritzker from defining the Astra airplane offered to the IDF as "made in the US", and prevented the possibility of using US military aid funds to purchase them.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on June 11, 2000