Israel Gets U.S. Consent to Offer Jet Fighters to Taiwan : Arms: The approval came at the height of a sensitive dispute over alleged Israeli sales of U.S. technology to China.

WASHINGTON —  The Bush Administration, in an apparent move to mollify Jerusalem, has approved the marketing in Taiwan of the Israeli-made Kfir jet fighter containing a U.S.-built General Electric engine, government officials said Thursday.

The approval came at the end of March, at the height of a highly sensitive dispute between Israel and the United States over intelligence reports that Israel had sold U.S. weapons technology to China without Washington’s approval.

At the same time, the United States also is reported to have signed an agreement to provide $320 million for the second phase of the Arrow project--an antimissile missile being developed in Israel with U.S. funding as part of the Administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative.

The State Department and the plane’s manufacturers, Israel Aircraft Industries, declined to discuss the Kfir deal. But officials from both countries said privately that Israel, which is retiring the planes in favor of the more modern U.S.-made F-16 fighter, has now presented Taiwan with an official offer to sell 20 refurbished Kfirs.

China appears to believe that the Kfirs, based on the 1950s French Mirage fighter, do not pose any threat. In addition, the Chinese are reluctant to stand in the way of the transaction so as not to upset their defense cooperation with Israel.

The weekly Defense News last week quoted a senior Taiwanese procurement official, Gen. Mike Hua, as saying that his country is unlikely to buy the Kfir--because it also prefers the F-16.

But the United States has been turning Taiwan down on the F-16 for almost a decade because Beijing disapproves of such a sale.