This week House progressives were able to temporarily hold up an additional $1 billion to Israel that had been tacked onto the short-term government spending bill to replenish the country’s Iron Dome system.
The victory ended up being short-lived, as Iron Dome spending was split into a separate vote by pro-Israel Dems and passed easily in the House. The final vote was 420-9 with 2 present.
The funding’s removal had sparked widespread congressional backlash on both sides of the aisle. The vote seemed to catch progressive House members in disarray, as some of lawmakers associated with the funding’s initial removal ended up voting for the legislation.
The No votes belonged to Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Andre Carson (D-IN), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) , Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL), Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-IL), Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), and Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO).
Not among the No votes: NY Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez voted present; while Mark Pocan (D-WI), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), all of whom have been critical of Israel, voted Yes.
The Israeli Prime Minister thanked the House shortly after the vote:
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, this evening: “Thank you, members of the US House of Representatives, Democrats and Republicans alike, for the overwhelming support for Israel and for the commitment to its security.
The Biden administration has repeatedly said that they support replenishing Iron Dome. Israel currently receives $3.8 billion in military aid from the U.S. every year.
“We cannot only be talking about Israelis’ need for safety at a time when Palestinians are living under a violent apartheid system and our dying from what Human Rights Watch have said are war crimes,” said Rep. Tlaib in a speech on the House floor. “We should also be talking about the Palestinian need for security from Israeli attacks. We must be consistent in our commitment to human life.”
Tlaib also said that Israel precipitated the Gaza conflict of last May when it attacked worshipers at Al Aqsa mosque.
The Israeli government is an apartheid regime. Not my words, the words of Human Rights Watch and Israel’s own human rights watch organization B’Tselem.
Ted Deutch of Florida rose to deny the charge. “I cannot allow a colleague… to label the Jewish Democratic state of Israel an apartheid state. I reject it.” He said such characterizations are “consistent with those who advocate for the dismantling of the one Jewish state in the world.. When there’s no place on the map for one Jewish state, that’s antisemitism.”
Brad Schneider of Illinois signalled the overwhelming support for the measure and promoted Israel:
America’s commitment to Iron Dome is rock solid. Today’s vote will make that clear—in spite of some on both sides of the aisle who seek to make Israel and our unyielding support of the U.S. Israel relationship a wedge issue. There are so many reasons for hope in the region. Israel has a new government with the broadest imaginable governing coalition including Arab parties. Israelis and Palestinians are talking to each other again.
The young Jewish group IfNotNow responded angrily to Deutch’s speech:
This is a perfect example of anti-Palestinian racism in American politics. How dare Rep. Deutch tell a Palestinian woman what she is and isn’t allowed to call the oppression and dispossession that Palestinians have endured through Israeli policies. It’s apartheid.
Writes Jehad Abusalim of AFSC of the deliberations:
The level of dehumanization of Palestinians, of Gaza, by Democrats and Republicans alike, and the amount of misinformation and misrepresentation of reality is just mind-boggling. They talk about Gaza as if Gaza was this superpower that could eliminate a nuclear state with state-of-the-art military and surveillance technology. There’s no mention of how Gaza ended up in the place where it is today. Palestinians are constantly deprived of context. Gaza is treated as this mysterious place, full of darkness and violence, where terrorism reigns. There’s no mention of how the modern-day Gaza Strip was created in 1948 due to the Nakba. There was no mention of how 2.2 million Palestinians are trapped in a “Strip” of land because the majority of them were expelled by Israel in 1948. Palestinians in Gaza come from 50 towns and villages Israel destroyed in 1948.
It truly blows my mind that Congress can’t even agree to unanimously agree to fund their own fucking federal government, yet Israel demands a billion dollar check and they can’t approve it fast enough, without also pouring praise on that Apartheid state.
Maybe if Israel asked our Congress to fund the federal government and raised the debt ceiling while they’re at it, we might actually get some overwhelming support in Congress to take care of their own fucking country and people for a change?
They are literally putting the needs of a foreign military state ahead of their own citizens at this point and it’s not even subtle.
No surprise here. The politicians from both parties are very deeply in the pockets of one the most vicious occupiers in the world. America’s insane foreign policies.
Incidentally, “The estimated cost of each Tamir interceptor missile was cited in 2014 as from US$20,000[154] to 50,000;[24] a 2020 analysis estimated a total cost of $100,000 to $150,000 for each interception.[3] In contrast, a crudely manufactured Qassam rocket costs around $800 and the Hamas Grad rocket costs only several thousand dollars.[155][156]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Dome#Cost
Of course negotiating with Hamas isn’t guaranteed to producer any results, but maybe it’s time for the U.S. to insist that Israel tries?
For the record:
It is now over 73 years since the well documented racist, illegal/brutal expansionist occupier and ethnic cleanser of the indigenous Palestinians referred to as “Israel” was forcibly established in historic Palestine and it is still dependent for survival on the U.S., which in the long run, is a dangerous position to be in!
Lest we forget, one more recent example of “Israel” milking the U.S.:
Factsheet: US Arms Sales and Security Assistance to Israel
“Since 2001, Israel has received over $63 billion in security assistance from the U.S., with over 90 percent of it funded by the State Department’s Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program.
“The FMF, which is commonly known as ‘the blank check’ to Israel, is funded by U.S. tax dollars and comes in the form of weapons grants. In May 2021, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reported that, in the 2021 fiscal year, the Trump administration requested $3.3 billion in FMF for Israel, constituting 59 percent of the requested global FMF budget.
“In the upcoming 2022 fiscal year, the Biden administration has requested to replicate it. The commitment to this level of funding was specifically instituted through a 10-year Memorandum of Understanding, signed under former President Barack Obama’s administration. The report explained further that, ‘Israel receives more FMF than all other countries in the world combined.’”
So AOC moved to defund the Iron Dome giveaway yesterday, but when it mattered, she courageously voted “present”. Will the Democratic party never stop inventing new ways to disappoint?
No worries, though, I’m sure she’ll wear a gown with “Palestinian Lives Matter” scrawled on the back.
Our Revolution!