US House Supplemental Won't Include Funds for Israel's Iron Dome

[mick silver]

WASHINGTON — The House this week could take up an emergency spending bill to address the US-Mexico border crisis, but it will not include funds for an Israeli missile defense program.
The Senate could act this week on a $3.5 billion supplemental that contains $225 million the Pentagon and Israeli leaders say is needed to begin replenishing that country’s Iron Dome interceptor missiles. Israeli officials say the system has saved countless lives in recent weeks by swatting away Hamas rockets fired from Gaza.
But House Republican leaders have opted against including the funds in the version of the border spending bill the lower chamber might vote on later this week, before leaving for a five-week recess.
“The supp doesn’t contain Iron Dome funding,” a senior House aide told CongressWatch on Tuesday morning.
The move is surprising considering how much support there is among Republican voters for Israel — especially in its renewed conflict with Hamas.
A recent Pew Research Center poll found large numbers of Republicans support Israel in this new conflict with Hamas. Pew found 73 percent of Republicans have more sympathy for Israel than for Palestinians. Only 44 percent of Democrats shared that stance.
About getting Israel funds to begin production of new Iron Dome interceptors, the House aide said Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., “hopes it can be addressed soon.”
But just how, if not as part of the broader border supplemental, and when, if not this week, remains unclear as lawmakers try to finish a number of items before leaving town on Thursday.
The aide did not tip the Republicans’ hand, saying only that Rogers “supports the funding, and he hopes that the issue can be dealt with before the break.”
Over in the Senate, there is bipartisan support for the $225 million.
“Republicans are united in support of our ally Israel,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said last Thursday. “We have legislation that would allow Congress to meet [Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s request for additional Iron Dome funding]. And we hope our friends on the other side will join us in coming to a sensible, bipartisan solution that can be passed quickly.”
McConnell wants to break out the Iron Dome funding into a stand-alone bill that could be quickly passed this week by both chambers.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., favors the catch-all supplemental written by the Appropriations Committee. But on Monday, he floated the idea of passing three emergency spending bills this week, including one just featuring the Israeli missile money.
“Leaving here with Israel being naked as they are,” Reid said on the Senate floor, “would be a shame if we did nothing.”
The Iron Dome system is built by Israeli companies Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, and many US lawmakers and officials want Boeing to soon begin co-production of the system. ■



Email: jbennett@defensenews.com.











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[mick silver]

(Editor’s note: This column initially appeared in the Aug. 4 print edition of Defense News. The House had not yet voted on its Iron Dome funding measure when that edition went to press on Aug. 1.)
Few things in Washington provide as much intrigue and drama as the days before a lengthy congressional recess. In the current climate, infamously long congressional breaks are a double-edged sword.
There are simply too many jokes about Congress doing anything but legislating for weeks on end to repeat them all here.
But on the other hand, the week before a long congressional recess is one of the most productive ones for both chambers. Lawmakers last week at least flirted with getting a few things of consequence done.
They also provided some fireworks on their way out of town.
Something remarkable nearly went down as both chambers tried to address separate versions of an emergency spending bill. And for national security watchers, it was something of a stunner.
Republicans, as of early Aug. 1, were fine with leaving town for five weeks without helping Israel in its renewed conflict with Hamas.
House GOP leaders initially pushed a supplemental spending bill that excluded $225 million for Israel’s Iron Dome missile system that was in the Senate’s version.
Some GOP members echoed what Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said July 31 on the Senate floor.
“I want to fund Israel. I want to supply them,” Coburn said, pleading for a budgetary offset for the funding. “I also want to make sure our children have a future. It is not hard to find $225 million out of $4 trillion.”
Make no mistake, the funding was on the brink.
Republicans’ willingness to leave July 31 without approving the Iron Dome funds showed just how much the Grand Old Party has changed, and how its policy priorities have shifted since the tea party rose in late 2010.
A recent Gallup poll concluded that 36 percent of Republicans surveyed pointed to business and economic issues as the most important to them politically. About the same number cited government spending and power as their top concerns.
“Fewer Republicans choose either social issues and moral values or national security and foreign policy as their top political priorities,” states a Gallup summary of the poll.
In fact, only 12 percent of Republicans said national security and foreign policy issues topped their lists — and that was down three percentage points from a version of the poll conducted earlier this year.
Last week, Republicans repeatedly put immigration policy — and not increasing the federal deficit —over standing beside America’s close ally.
While it was stunning to watch, a closer look shows what the GOP was ready to do on July 31 was in lock step with where GOP voters stand.
Tel Aviv may still get its requested Iron Dome dollars. But what the GOP was ready to do last week is just another reason Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the tea party darling, has to be considered the frontrunner to win the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. ■










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[Ponce]

The same way that we gave the weapon (economy) to destroy us is the same way that we are giving the weapons (cash) to destroy us.....The Zionist have bases all around the globe so that they can survive while we die..... Hamas is nothing more than the anchor that the Zionist are using to draw the help and sympaty that they need from the American.....why?, no idea.

V