I thought I heard in the news that US planes have to fly around Israel. Is this true? If so, why?
Well, if they fly through Israel, they would then have to fly through either Jordan or Syria to get to Iraq. I don’t see it would be useful for them to fly through Israel, and it might be yet more bad publicity in the Arab community if they heard the US was using Israel’s airspace to attack Iraq.
To amplify what Punoqllads said, I heard one report that Jordan would get very nervous if it saw jets flying out of Israel heading to their territory.
In other words, they haven’t asked. I’m pretty sure Israel would allow it if they did.
I thought Israli planes were U.S. produced planes.
Israeli planes are US produced planes (at least most of them), but I’m not sure what you were responding to.