You can jailbreak an F-35 just like an iPhone: Dutch defense chief

[Opinion. Think about that. Israel wants to equal the US in warmaking capability. The US govt allows Israel to negotiate an enormous weapons purpose from a major US corporation. Doesn't anybody else see anything wrong with this picture??? Not even US allies have worked any deals with Lockheed.]

No worries if the US doesn't want to be friends with Europe anymore

Connor Jones

The Register: 18 February 2026

"The F-35 is truly a shared product," Tuinman told BNR's Boekestijn en De Wijk show (translated from Dutch). "The British make the Rolls-Royce engines, and the Americans simply need them too. And even if this mutual dependency doesn't result in software updates, the F-35, in its current state, is still a better aircraft than other types of fighters."

"If you still want to upgrade despite everything, I'm going to say something I should never say, but I will anyway: you can jailbreak an F-35 just like an iPhone."

Tuinman did not elaborate on what he meant by this, but his comments suggest that European forces currently managing a fleet of F-35s would be capable of maintaining their aircraft's software, with or without the help of US manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

Israel is the only country to have negotiated a deal with Lockheed Martin, allowing it to run its own software on its F-35I fleet.

Speaking to Bild, within the context of the US pausing military aid to Ukraine – to which it supplied F-16 aircraft – Schranzhofer said the idea of a remote "kill switch" was "more than just a rumor."