Republicans Vote to Cut Aid to Israel
On September 29, 198 Republicans — 90% of all House Republicans — voted for HR 5525, a so-called continuing resolution that would have cut aid to Israel by 29.88565%. It failed because 21 Republicans and 211 Democrats voted against it. No Democrats voted for it. Ten percent of Republicans opposed it because the cuts were not large enough.
The bill cut funding for many agencies by the same percentages and carved out exceptions in limited cases. No exception was made for Israel even though the amount of aid the U.S. provides to Israel, while significant for Israel, is a minuscule portion of the total U.S. budget. Unlike the rest of the foreign aid budget and unlike the other cuts, the cuts in aid to Israel violated the Memorandum of Understanding entered into between the U.S. and Israel in 2016.
This was not a lone Democrat or a handful of Democrats voting against a one-off Iron Dome appropriation that both parties supported overwhelmingly. This was nearly the entire Republican Party voting for legislation that included cutting 30% of our aid to Israel. That’s a heckuva lot worse than considering restrictions or conditions on aid to Israel. It’s a flat-out cut.
It didn’t get much attention in part because it happened on a Friday, always a good day to do bad things, in part because it failed, and in part because too many of us want to cling to the myth that despite its other problems, despite deleting support for a two-state solution from its platform, despite the antisemitism rampant within its ranks, the Republican Party can be trusted to look out for Israel when the going gets tough.
Republicans drafted this legislation with no input from Democrats. They could have exempted Israel from the cuts. They chose not to. I suppose we could choose to believe that it was all part of a big game for them, but if that’s the case, do we want them playing political games with Israel? Do we want them using Israel as a bargaining chip for budget negotiations or internal squabbles about who gets to drive their clown car? This legislation would have passed the House despite unanimous Democratic opposition if McCarthy had been able to bring his party together as effectively as Nancy Pelosi managed the Democratic caucus when she was Speaker.
This is where I’d share and refute the Republican explanation for cutting aid to Israel by 30% but I have yet to see any Republican explanations. AIPAC has claimed that gosh darn it, it just has to support insurrectionists, election deniers, and antisemites because the Republicans it supports are good on their one issue. Well, if their one issue does not include aid to Israel, I don’t know what does. Will AIPAC give them a pass even for this? Is there any vote a Republican can cast that would cause them to lose AIPAC support? Once upon a time, voting to cut aid to Israel was a red line for AIPAC. If it’s not, well, good to know.
Either we care about funding the full level that the U.S. has committed to Israel or we don’t. If we don’t, let’s stop pretending that we do. If we do support honoring our Memorandum of Understanding with Israel, then we cannot excuse this Republican vote against aid to Israel. Whatever their explanation is, whatever their intent was, the bottom line was that they wrote, brought to the floor, and voted in favor of legislation that would have cut aid to Israel by 30%. It did not pass because of unanimous Democratic opposition.
Do you think I’m wrong? Show me a statement from any Republican who voted for it explaining why I’m wrong and I’ll update this post to include it. That shouldn’t be too hard — there were 198 yes votes from Republicans. Hard to believe that not even one of them issued a statement explaining why they voted to cut aid to Israel by 30%.
Ben Samuels reminds us that the 30% almost across-the-board Republican cuts “would have also significantly affected other areas of significant importance to the Jewish community — including combatting antisemitism, Holocaust education and law enforcement measures against hate crimes at a time of pronounced domestic antisemitism.” It was a “so-called” continuing resolution because a genuine continuing resolution would have continued the government. As the White House pointed out, the government has to be funded 100%, not 70%, to stay open.
Read the press release from Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and other Democratic leaders and watch the press conference, which included Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL). You can watch the entire press conference here.
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