How an overpriced warplane complicates diplomacy in the Middle East

DON’T BE FOOLED by the nondescript buildings of the Nevatim air base, deep in the Negev desert. Lately the facility in southern Israel has served as something like an advanced testing ground for the most state-of-the-art warplanes made in the West. Take the American-made F-35 stealth fighter jet, which Israeli pilots flew over Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip in 2018—the plane’s first combat missions. Israel receives such weapons long before America’s other allies in the region, giving it a unique military advantage. But it may be losing some of that edge.