Posted on 11/28/2021 10:41:32 AM PST by RandFan
When progressive House Democrats fought a vote to pass aid for Israel’s Iron Dome defense shield, the outrage among both mainstream Democrats and Republicans boiled over.
Florida Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch asserted that the opposition permitted “the dismantling of the one Jewish state in the world.” The National Republican Senatorial Committee labeled the progressives as “anti-Israel radicals.”
In the end, just 4% of House Democrats -- eight in total, along with one Republican -- Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie -- voted against the $1 billion defense appropriation in September.
But in the two months since then, the Senate’s taken no action to finalize passage. And Jewish Democrats are largely blaming one man: Rand Paul
Paul objected to unanimous consent passage of the funding in an attempt to extract a condition that the $1 billion for Israel come out of the $3.6 billion remaining allocated for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, which the U.S. military departed in August.
That money was appropriated before the Taliban’s takeover of the country and Paul wants to ensure those dollars aren’t spent on a faction that America was at war with for 20 years.
President Joe Biden’s administration has frozen Afghanistan’s assets and said it would continue to deny the Taliban funding, but hasn’t ruled out eventually sending money to the regime depending on its actions and commitments it makes to the international community.
“The only people standing in the way of funding Iron Dome are the Democrats who are absurdly blocking Dr. Paul’s GOP-supported efforts to fund it with money that would otherwise end up in the hands of the Taliban,” said Paul spokeswoman Kelsey Cooper.
(Excerpt) Read more at kentucky.com ...
I’m with Paul on this issue...
Use Afghan money instead of letting islam have it...
It’s time to cut ourselves loose from all the troublesome people of the Middle East, including Israel. When Trump got the US to be energy independent, that was a big step forward, now Biden has us back at square one.
Not a popular opinion around here, how about we get out of having to spend money on other nations militaries, and use that money here at home.
Common sense isn’t it?
Take a billion from the Afghan money and Paul will let it pass.
The Biden admin. are being stubborn.
Neither looks like they back down
We do need a friend in the Middle East, and Israel has been a friend.
There is 7.9 Billion people in the world, and the United States has only about 330 million of them. Isolationism isn’t going to work anymore, sadly.
Rand Paul is seriously out of step with a rather large majority of Americans, and I’m not sure I buy the idea that he’s OK with funding the Iron Dome at all. I’ll say it, while I’m betting a lot of other people are thinking it. Luckily he is extreme enough that the voters probably won’t hold his shenanigans against the GOP. Tell you what, though. If the Democrats do bump the filibuster back to a talking filibuster, he’s going to be their poster boy!
Why on Earth should we be funding a foreign country's defenses?
Pretty bold to say "still haven't funded..." like it's some sort of obligation or debt.
“It’s time to cut ourselves loose from all the troublesome people of the Middle East, including Israel. When Trump got the US to be energy independent, that was a big step forward, now Biden has us back at square one.”
Having been in the military/industrial complex for 33 years, I have a few data points concerning Israel. I also worked for the Israeli equivalent of GE, when GE made almost everything.
Israel is probably the largest buyer of US hardware. They push the hardware into evolutionary adaptations that the US doesn’t generally explore. This gives the gear they buy from us different capabilities, sometimes superior capabilities and can lead to significant advantages. Sometimes the US adopts those changes, and, sometimes not.
The Israelis are the world’s largest producer and user of drone technology. Their innovations are available to the US and have saved billions of dollars in development costs. Also, the special relationship we have with Israel tends to limit their sales of advanced weaponry to potential US enemies.
The Israelis supplied the missile and mortar detection and interception technology used to protect US installations in Iraq.
Israel is the only democracy in a neighborhood of sometimes horrible dictatorships. If the US needs a safe harbor, then it has one.
Isarel shares intelligence with the US and I suspect this has resulted in some number of highly secret “wins” that we don’t know about. I suspect this because of the number of things that have NOT happened.
Isarel punches WAY above its weight and has acted like the rods in a nuclear reactor, slowing down any bad over reaction in the Middle East.
Isarel has and shares the most advanced desalinization technology on the planet. The lack of water is going to be the cause of wars throughout the Middle East and Israel is doing its best to be certain that even enemies have water. The original documents on the planned Saudi international city, Noam, hinted heavily that Isarel would supply the water. (Later documents played that down as it was probably a “trial balloon” to see how it played at home. But Naom can’t be built without sufficient water.)
“Israel has been a friend”
In what way?
Mashabim Air Base for one thing.
Dimona Radar Facility
Israel’s lack of faith in the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob to be their shield, is duly noted..
Tell me why are we giving Afghanistan money?
How is Israel troublesome?
Nevermind that Israel spies on us all the time and half of Congress has dual-citizenship with them.
Agreed...
However, in this case we are discussing money that has already been allocated/spent and will most likely end up in the hands of afghan terrorists if we don't get it reallocated...
Israel may turn out to be no more holy than any other nation in this fake news era..
Their pride parades aren’t any better than the ones here.
Their abortions aren’t any better than the ones here..
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