The United States will equip Israel with a fifth-generation stealth aircraft in 2016, Vice President Joe Biden said April 16 in downtown Washington.
“Next year we will deliver to Israel the F-35 joint strike fighter, our finest, making Israel the only country in the Middle East with a fifth-generation aircraft,” Biden said at an Israeli Embassy event to celebrate the country’s 67th Independence Day.
As he stood in front of a large digital image of an Israeli flag projected on the rear wall of the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, Biden promised the crowd of 1,000 Jewish community professionals, politicians, diplomats and military officers that the United States would always “have Israel’s back.”
Photos by Geoffrey W. Melada
