Does Lockheed Martin support Israel?

Israel became the first country to select the F-35 through the U.S. government's Foreign Military Sales process, signing a Letter of Agreement in October 2010. Framed precisely: these are government-to-government sales — the U.S. government contracts Lockheed Martin to build the jets for Israel, largely funded by U.S. Foreign Military Financing. Israel's orders reached 50 aircraft by November 2016 (33 plus an exercised 17-jet option); the first F-35I "Adir" rolled out in June 2016 and arrived in Israel that December, and the fleet was declared operational in December 2017. Lockheed aircraft have equipped the Israeli Air Force for decades, including 102 F-16I Sufa fighters (delivered 2004-2009), C-130J transports, and a 2021 agreement for 12 CH-53K helicopters.

During the Gaza war, Israel's Defense Ministry signed a $3 billion government-to-government deal for 25 more Lockheed Martin-built F-35s (bringing orders to 75), funded through U.S. Foreign Military Financing, with deliveries from 2028. In May 2026 Israel's government approved a further purchase of roughly 25 additional F-35s alongside 25 F-15IAs, which would eventually take the F-35I fleet to about 100 jets.

Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson opened the company's first office in Israel in Beersheba in April 2014, saying it demonstrated the corporation's commitment to supporting the Israel Defense Forces and their "move to the south"; in August 2014 the company registered an Israeli subsidiary, Lockheed Martin Israel Ltd, focused on cybersecurity, IT, data analytics and cloud computing.

State-owned Israel Aerospace Industries has produced F-35 wing sets for Lockheed Martin since 2014 as part of the industrial-participation package tied to Israel's F-35 purchase; IAI delivered its 350th wing set in February 2026, supplying wings for F-35s sold to customers worldwide. Israeli media have valued the long-term production arrangement at up to roughly $2.5 billion. Other Israeli industrial roles in the program include Elbit Systems' work on the F-35 helmet-mounted display.

Lockheed Martin signed a teaming agreement with Israel's state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems to jointly develop, market, manufacture and support Rafael's SPICE precision air-to-surface guidance kits for sale to the U.S. military (building on a July 2018 marketing MOU covering SPICE 1000 and SPICE 2000); the partnership was expanded to the SPICE 250 variant.

After the October 7, 2023 attack, the U.S. government's F-35 Joint Program Office rushed spare parts and new capabilities (including U.S. mission data files) to Israel's F-35 fleet "at breakneck speed" — the rushing was a U.S. government action, with Lockheed Martin as the program's prime contractor stating it remained "committed to partnering with our customers to deliver sustainment support, enabling mission readiness and deterrence." The Lockheed-led global supply chain kept Israeli F-35s flying through the Gaza and Lebanon campaigns, and CEO Jim Taiclet told investors on October 17, 2023 that the Israel and Ukraine conflicts were potential drivers of future revenue.

Five separate U.S. Department of the Navy contract actions with Lockheed Martin, recorded on USAspending.gov, funded Foreign Military Sales sustainment and support work with Israel named as the end user: a $651.1m 'Israel Unique Spares' order (started 2017-03), a $10.3m 'Israel Core Support Phase 1 Extension' (2007-09), a $4.2m feasibility study for an Israeli Littoral Combat Ship (2006-02), a $3.3m 'Israel Preliminary Tasks' delivery order (2009-11), and a $2.4m 'Israel Post DD250 Aircraft Ferry' order (2017-02) — together about $671.3m. Each is a contract between the U.S. government and Lockheed Martin, not a donation to Israel; the award descriptions name Israel as the programme's end user.

Five separate U.S. Department of the Air Force contract actions with Lockheed Martin, recorded on USAspending.gov, funded Foreign Military Sales spares and engineering support with Israel named as the end user: an $8.5m order for Israel LANTIRN targeting-pod support (2018-07), a $4.1m 'C-130J Israel Spares' order (2018-06), a $3.9m 'C-130J Foreign Military Sales Israel Multi Function Service Engineer' order (2019-05), a $2.2m 'Israel In Country Support' order (2022-12), and a $2.0m 'F-16 Integrator for the Country of Israel' order (2020-07) — together about $20.7m. As with the Navy contracts above, these are U.S. government purchases from Lockheed Martin, not donations; Israel is the FMS end user named in each award description.

Lockheed Martin Corporation's own Q1 2024 federal lobbying disclosure (LDA filing, registrant and client both Lockheed Martin) lists HR 6126 — the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024 — among the specific bills it lobbied on, covering 'issues related to aircraft, helicopters, munitions, technology programs, space programs.' This is a distinct, named appropriations act (part of the wartime Israel/Ukraine/Indo-Pacific supplemental package), not a boilerplate country-relations mention; the filing does not state a motive or amount tied specifically to this bill, only that the company lobbied Congress on it.