Senators want to change massive new Israel aid package

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

POLITICS | Tue Sep 20, 2016 | 6:17pm EDT

Senators want to change massive new Israel aid package

By Patricia Zengerle | WASHINGTON

Republican U.S. lawmakers launched an effort on Tuesday to modify a $38 billion military aid agreement with Israel by providing more money and easing controls on how it is spent, setting up a showdown with President Barack Obama over the package days after it was signed.

Senators Lindsey Graham, Kelly Ayotte, John McCain and Ted Cruz told a news conference they had filed a measure to give Israel an additional $1.5 billion in military aid, while renewing U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Republican Senators Mark Kirk, Marco Rubio and Roy Blunt also co-sponsored the bill introduced on Tuesday.

Ayotte, McCain, Kirk, Rubio and Blunt all face competitive races for re-election on Nov. 8.

Arguing that U.S. law gives Congress control of spending, they objected to a provision preventing Israel from asking for additional funds from Congress after the new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), begins at the end of fiscal 2018.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-israel-security-congress-idUSKCN11Q2ES

[atreides1]

1. Why not?

Poisoned water in Flint, homeless veterans, crumbling infrastructure...and they want to give more money to a foreign country!!!

Why is it that so many Americans, especially conservatives are more loyal to Israel then they are to this country?

[oberliner]

3. "more loyal to Israel then they are to this country"

Voting to increase foreign aid means you are less loyal to the United States?

[Orrex]

5. Prioritizing foreign aid over domestic spending *does* call one's loyalty into question

No, it's not a slam dunk. But when the GOP makes the argument that "we can't afford" a few million for this or that domestic program and then promptly hands a no-strings-attached check for $38B to a foreign power, then a third-party observer might be forgiven for concluding that the GOP holds Israel in higher esteem than the US.

If I told my wife that we can't afford to pay the $100 gas bill this month but then went out and spent $100 on sports bobbleheads, does it seem unlikely that she'd question my priorities?

[oberliner]

7. You don't see accusations of "being more loyal to Egypt than to the United States" though

It only seems to come up with respect to Israel.

And, of course, knowing the dark history of accusations being hurled over the centuries at Jewish people allegedly not being loyal citizens of their home countries, you can understand how it can strike one as odd that this sort of formulation seems to come up only in this context.

[Orrex]

9. I agree, and we should hold all aid recipients to that standard

knowing the dark history of accusations being hurled over the centuries at Jewish people allegedly not being loyal citizens of their home countries, you can understand how it can strike one as odd that this sort of formulation seems to come up only in this context.

Yes, but centuries of baseless and bigoted accusations don't justify Israel's acts against Palestinians, nor should those centuries be used to justify $38B in current aid.

Also, I don't believe that most of the GOP whose loyalties are being questioned are themselves Jewish; the great majority are far-Right Christians, and they're American citizens serving in the US Government, so it's entirely appropriate to scrutinize their loyalties regardless of the atrocities committed against Jews.

[Orrex]

2. Well, it costs money to murder Palestinian civilians

[oberliner]

4. The US police force appears to have mastered the art of murdering civilians

To say nothing of the various other countries around the world that we give aid to where such behavior is even more commonplace.

Israel is middle to bottom of the pack in that regard.

[Orrex]

6. You won't see me defending the police for murdering civilians

But how many countries do we reward with $38B in handouts after their militaries kill hundreds and hundreds of civilians?

If Obama gave $38 to Hamas, for instance, the GOP would call for his immediate execution.

[oberliner]

8. Understood

But if you look at the groups in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, who have received hundreds of millions of dollars in aid from the Obama administration every year, you could not help but note that they have been responsible for many civilian deaths, that seem to go largely unnoticed in those conflicts since they are ostensibly "the good guys".

That is not meant to excuse the fact that the Israeli government is also worthy of criticism in that regard, but, I guess my point is that the US has never really let human rights issues stand in the way of foreign alliances (and we would be hypocritical if we did).

[Orrex]

10. I have to say that you're completely correct in that assessment

I think that the US should withhold all military aid from nations that use that aid to murder civilians, whether in their own countries or abroad.

And we should be more vocal across the board in demanding accountability for nations that engage in such murder.


Of course, as you note, we'd have to do something about the beam in our own eye first...

[aranthus]

11. I'm insulted.

First let's see this for what it is: an election year stunt. These Congresspeople know that the bill has almost no chance of passing, and zero chance of being signed. So why even bring it up, except that it's an election year? Let's get the Jews on the side of the Republicans. All we have to do is offer a better deal than the President, and the Jews will all flock to us. Well as an American of Jewish heritage, let me say that we aren't that stupid, that gullible, that single issue obsessed, that we would fall for this shtick. And since the fundamental assumption of this turd of a bill is that I and people of my heritage actually are that stupid, foolish, and single issue obsessed, then, yeah, I'm insulted.

[leftynyc]

12. The cons are nauseous

that don the con is not doing better with Jewish voters despite his daughter converting to marry. That's all this is.