Ahead of the House’s vote on Thursday to pass its GOP-proposed $14.3 billion Israel aid bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the upper chamber won’t consider the legislation, which he called a “deeply flawed proposal.”
“Instead we will work on our own bipartisan emergency aid package that includes funding for aid to Israel, Ukraine, humanitarian aid including for Gaza and competition with the Chinese government,” Schumer wrote in a social media post.
The House on Thursday voted 226-196, largely along party lines, to pass the $14.3 billion bill with aid for Israel, which follows Hamas’ incursion on Oct. 7 and as the country pursues a ground invasion of Gaza.
“I am proud to have voted for the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act reaffirming to the world that House Republicans stand unequivocally with our great ally Israel,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), chair of the House GOP conference, said in a statement.
The legislation has received pushback from House and Senate Democrats for offsetting costs with $14.3 billion in Internal Revenue Service (IRS) budget cuts and its lack of funding for Ukraine assistance and other priorities included in the White House’s new $106 billion supplemental spending request.
The White House has said President Biden would veto the legislation, adding the “bill is bad for Israel, for the Middle East region, and for our own national security” (Defense Daily, Nov. 1).
Ultimately, 12 House Democrats joined nearly all Republicans in voting for the Israel aid bill, to include Reps. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), Don Davis (D-N.C.), Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), Jared Golden (D-Maine), Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Greg Landsman (D-Ohio), Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), Darren Soto (D-Fla.), Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), Juan Vargas (D-Calif.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.).
Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the top Democrats on the Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, respectively, released a joint statement on Thursday ahead of the House’s vote on their opposition to the bill and calling for Congress to pursue security assistance efforts for both Israel and Ukraine.
“House Democrats have been ready and willing for weeks to meet the national security needs of the American people and provide Israel and Ukraine with the necessary resources to defend themselves. The partisan Israel-only supplemental offered by extreme Republicans fails to meet the urgency of this moment or confront the numerous other challenges facing the United States, and friends and allies around the world. Unfortunately, our new House Speaker has decided to break with a long history of bipartisan emergency aid packages,” Meeks, Smith and Himes said. “As the White House has noted, the Israel-only supplemental would create a dangerous precedent by demanding poison pill riders in return for meeting our national security need.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged lawmakers during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday to support the Biden administration’s full $106 billion supplemental spending request, cautioning against separating out aid for Israel from continued assistance to Ukraine and citing the tens of billions of dollars of investments in the U.S. defense industrial base as a key component for moving forward on the emergency spending package (Defense Daily, Oct. 31).
The House-passed bill adheres to the security assistance spending figures for aid to Israel laid out in the Biden administration’s request, to include $4.4 billion to support Pentagon efforts to replace stockpiles of equipment sent to Israel and $801 million for Army ammunition procurement to increase production capacity.
The bill also includes providing Israel with $4 billion for procurement of Iron Dome air defense system and David’s Sling short-range ballistic missile defense capabilities, $1.2 billion for its Iron Beam laser-based defense system, and $3.5 billion in Foreign Military Financing funds to purchase U.S.-made defense equipment.