Israel sells Arrow 3 to Germany as Ukraine war fuels demand

TEL AVIV – The United States' long-awaited approval of the $3.5 billion sale of Arrow 3 air defense missiles by Israel to Germany is a clear outcome of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Despite the grim circumstances, Israel's ambassador to Berlin, Ron Prosor, views the deal announced this week as being of particularly symbolic significance. 

"Think about it," Prosor told Al-Monitor. "Today, 80 years after the Holocaust of European Jewry, Israel is becoming a country that will protect Germany from ballistic threats." Prosor himself has special reason to be excited: his paternal grandfather, Berthold Proskauer, was a decorated officer in the German army, a Jewish patriot, who lived in central Berlin. The 1933 rise of the Nazi Party and its horrific burning of Jewish books led him and his family to flee their homeland and emigrate to Palestine, which later became the modern State of Israel. Now, 90 years later, the grandson will witness the largest arms deal in the history of Israel's military industry, a deal aimed at providing Germany and Europe with the best air defense and interception systems in the world. 

"This is a historic day without a doubt," Prosor said. "It's impossible not to be excited."

Echoing similar sentiments, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement, saying, “Seventy-five years after the Jewish people were crushed to ashes in Nazi Germany … the Jewish state gives Germany, another Germany, tools to defend itself … What Israeli pride. What a historic turning point.”