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Albright furious over El Al plans to buy European planes
Aluf Benn - Ha'aretz 9 December 1999
" Buy Boeing - buy peace"! after reading the article , and if Israel will cave in , it will prove that we became a " banana republic" that receives its orders from the Big Boss FROM U.S.A. tomorrow we will be ordered which beer to drink and where to buy our cloths. (Moshe Leshem - editor) Secretary of State Madeleine Albright yesterday warned Israel that the announced intention of El Al, Israel's national airline, to purchase planes and jet engines in Europe could imperil Israeli-U.S. relations and adversely affect the future of U.S. aid to Israel. "Our relations are excellent," Albright said, "but there is a serious problem here." Albright said El Al should purchase planes made by Boeing, as it has in the past, and American-made engines. She rejected the official Israeli reply that the purchase was a commercial transaction that was determined according to professional and economic considerations by the airline. "As far as we know, El Al is a government company," a senior American official said. Albright said that a decision to buy from Boeing would strengthen the diplomatic and economic relations between the two countries. She said she had heard "informally" that El Al is planning to acquire Airbus passenger planes and Rolls-Royce engines. Buying from European manufacturers would be a "very bad message" for us, she said. She noted that it would be "very embarrassing" for Israel if the administration has to explain to Congress why Israel is buying European aircraft when it asks for aid to Israel to be approved. "The American people and Congress will find it hard to understand why Israel would not want to purchase a competitive product" from an American manufacturer, said State Department spokesman James Rubin. El Al decided to split an order for new planes between the U.S. manufacturer Boeing and the European Airbus company. The El Al board has yet to allocate funds, and Transport Minister Yitzhak Mordechai ordered the airline to conduct another review. The Airbus order would be worth about $250 million. Foreign Minister David levy promised that El Al would make its final decision "objectively. |