From JNS.org
“The president’s threat to veto this legislation and Schumer’s refusal to bring it to a vote in the Senate are acts of betrayal to our closest ally in the region,” said Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday intended to force the Biden administration to deliver a paused arms shipment to Israel.
The Israel Security Assistance Support Act condemns U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to withhold the delivery of 3,500 bombs to Israel amid the administration’s concerns that the Jewish state would use them in a military operation in the south Gazan city of Rafah.
The act would cut off funding for the Pentagon, U.S. State Department and National Security Council if Biden does not release the shipment or if he withholds any future shipment of arms from Israel.
The bill passed on a mostly party-line vote of 224-187 after the White House issued a statement on Tuesday saying that Biden would veto the measure if it came to his desk.
“This bill could raise serious concerns about infringement on the president’s authorities under Article II of the Constitution, including his duties as commander-in-chief and Chief executive and his power to conduct foreign relations,” the White House stated.
Only 16 Democrats—many of whom are either noted pro-Israel advocates or moderates in swing districts—voted to force Biden’s hand and release the aid.
The three Republican “nay” votes came from Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), all of whom opposed the Israel foreign aid bill in April.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) stated after the House’s passage of the bill that Biden’s decision to withhold the arms sale was “catastrophic and goes directly against the will of Congress.”
Johnson also condemned Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for saying that the Senate would not consider the measure.
“The president’s threat to veto this legislation and Leader Schumer’s refusal to bring it to a vote in the Senate are acts of betrayal to our closest ally in the region,” Johnson stated. “What’s more alarming is the 184 House Democrats that joined them in siding with the radical, pro-Hamas wing of the Democratic party. Security assistance to Israel is an urgent priority that must not be delayed.”
Several pro-Israel Democrats, who voted against the bill, argued that it undermined bipartisan support for the Jewish state and would actually weaken Israel if it somehow became law.
“This bill does nothing to help Israel strategically, but it attacks Israel at its two weakest points,” said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.). “The first is bipartisan support. Israel has one friend in the world. It cannot afford to have only half of one friend.”
“This resolution has poison pills, including condemning Biden by name, in a clear effort to get as little Democratic support as possible,” he added.
Sherman also said that exempting Israel from the Leahy laws and other routine legislation that requires recipients of U.S. arms to comply with international law would have the unintended effect of suggesting that Israel was violating those laws.
“Second, this bill attacks Israel’s international image,” Sherman said. “Israel, in fact, meets American and international standards for minimizing civilian casualties. But what this bill does is it exempts Israel from the Leahy and similar laws, in effect declaring from this Congress to the world that Israel can’t meet the standard.”
“Congress should not step forward and exempt Israel from a test that Israel clearly meets,” he added. “That’s poison on the international stage.”
‘A partisan stunt’
Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) were among the pro-Israel Democrats who also voted against the bill.
“Today’s vote was a partisan stunt,” Wasserman Schultz said. “Republicans hoped to paper over their failure to provide aid to Israel for six months. I remain committed to working across the aisle on legislation and funding for our vital ally Israel.”
“It is wrong to withhold even just one shipment of weapons to Israel as it fights an existential, multipronged war,” Schneider said. “I can’t imagine anyone in this body believing that automatically zeroing out the budget for the Departments of State, Defense and the National Security Council in the case of delayed arms is a good idea.”
“It is a terrible, dangerous idea, and it’s the reason I must vote against this bill,” he added.
Republican supporters of the measure argued that Biden’s decision to pause the arms shipment undermined his repeated claim of “ironclad” support for Israel.
“The Biden administration, despite all the rhetoric, has broken its so-called ‘ironclad’ commitment to Israel by halting shipments of weapons at a time when Israel needs them the most,” said Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.). “Weapons that not only that Israel has asked for, but the president himself asked Congress to provide.”
“This administration’s argument is that the bill undermines the president’s ability to ‘execute an effective foreign policy,’” he added. “Does anyone really believe that this administration has an effective foreign policy?”
Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also hit back at the “ironclad” line from Biden on Thursday.
“Delaying weapons to Israel isn’t indicative of a commitment wrapped in ‘iron’ but more like ‘tin foil,’” he said.
Norm Coleman and Matt Brooks, national chairman and CEO respectively of the Republican Jewish Coalition, stated that the “spineless House Democrats shamefully chose partisan political loyalty over standing with our most cherished ally in the Middle East, voting overwhelmingly to oppose this measure.”
“Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has also said this bill will not even get a vote in the U.S. Senate,” the RJC leaders said. “This is a test for Democratic senators who say they support Israel: Will you meekly accept this betrayal of a key strategic partner?”
The RJC leaders singled out Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), asking what each of the four had to say.
“There is no excuse for President Biden’s embargo of Israel as it fights for its very survival—and, unsurprisingly, Biden has said he would veto this bill if it ever reached his desk,” Coleman and Brooks said. “Without a doubt, there is only one unequivocally pro-Israel party and it is the Republican Party.” source
It still shocks and saddens me that it has come to this. But God is in control and we must trust Him!
HOW CAN I BE SAVED?
MARANATHA!
Yes. Chuck Schumer doesn’t shock me, though. I expect the worst from him& am never disappointed. Debbie Wasserman Shultz – seems to be a ditzy useful idiot. Jews staying with the Democrats is like a woman who stays with her wife beating husband.
I keep asking myself- what in the world are they hiding in Rafah that they will do anything to stop this?
I am researching this, sis. I am determined to find out what the deal is with Rafah!!
“I keep asking myself- what in the world are they hiding in Rafah that they will do anything to stop this?”
That is a very good point. I have been thinking that they simply want to keep the region on the boil, for whatever power-mongering designs they may have (here, you should read ideas they think are their own, but are really satan’s way of using them, his pawns, in his vain attempt to destroy Israel and nullify God’s Holy Word, for they seem incapable of having any ideas of their own, which satan has not put in their evil heads), but of course they may well be up to plenty of nefarious activity there. What price U.S. arms smugglers providing arms through the tunnels everyone knows Hamas has there? They might be able to hide such activity from Egypt, or plenty of Egyptian government members might be open to accepting the kind of huge bribes someone like Biden would think nothing of worsening his own country’s debt by handing out to them, to turn a blind eye to such activity.
If there is one thing which consistently comes out of every country on earth now, it is the corruption of government officials — they all love to appear clean before people, but all the time stories come to light of this one and that one, often ones people really looked up to, being caught out in all kinds of things that are anything but clean.
So, in short, I could easily believe the horrible hypothesis I made above, if it turned out irrefutably to actually be so — it ought to be incredible, but it actually isn’t….
Biden& son have been linked to shady operations in Ukraine, concerning both weapons & drugs, if I recall correctly. What bothers me is that the Biden’s don’t seem smart enough to be master criminals.
The huge cache of arms left behind in Afghanistan is another thing. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination and mine…
I’m not one to try& match wits with the devil.
I was a big fan of The Untouchables- Eliot Ness& his men getting after the Mafia back when G men were good, and judges& prosecutors did their jobs.
At least we thought so. Some certainly did. The media would actually get the story right sometimes, too.
………..when G men were good………..hmmmm……need to ponder that a while 🙂
Not the Bidens, you are right — CIA would be my choice for such a scheme, if I were running a dark show behind the scenes….