Israel or Ukraine? The United States doubts whether it can feed two warring armies

WashingtonJoe Biden has sent a request to the US Congress to approve a joint aid package of about 106 billion dollars that includes economic and military assistance to its two warring allies, Ukraine (61.4 billion) and Israel (14,300 million), among other expenses. The president is convinced that the current moment is a “turning point in history” and that the approval of this aid will pay “American security dividends for generations to come.” But the Republicans are not so clear that, after a year and a half of conflict and stagnation in Ukraine, it is necessary to keep the flow of money to Kyiv alive.

The newly elected speaker of the House of Representatives, the Trumpist Mike Johnson, has already made it clear that he wants to delink assistance to Ukraine from that of Israel, and has sent congressmen an alternative proposal: an emergency package of 14.3 billion dollars for Tel-Aviv alone. “We have to take care of, and we will take care of, many things that are happening right now in the world – he assured just after being appointed – but what is happening right now in Israel requires immediate attention, and we must deal with it separately.”

To do so, Johnson wants to send a bill to a vote before the end of this week. But it doesn’t seem to have much of a chance: no matter how much it passes in the Republican-dominated and far-right-led lower house, it also needs approval in the Senate, with a Democratic majority and more moderate Republicans, who are unwilling to disengage the aid to the two countries at war.

“We must not succumb to the false goodness of the isolationism professed by the far right, because the only thing it will achieve is to make the United States less safe,” defended Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate. Along the same lines, Republican leader Mitch McConnell has a more moderate stance than his colleagues in the lower house: “The time has come to act quickly and decisively to impose real consequences on the tyrants who have terrorized the populations of Ukraine and Israel,” he assured in a meeting on Monday with the Ukrainian ambassador Oksana Markarova.

Republican Blockade in Congress

“We are the United States of America, the most powerful nation in history. We can deal with Ukraine and Israel while maintaining our international defense. We have the ability to do so, we have the obligation to do so… If if we don’t, who will?” Biden told CBS a week after the Hamas attacks. So far, however, his magnanimous speech has not been able to convince Congress to overcome internal divisions.

The high $106 billion aid package that the president has requested includes, in addition to assistance to the two countries, funding for Taiwan ($7.4 billion), a key ally in the strategy of containment of China, as well as an increase in investment in the security of the southern border (14,000 million), the hot potato of his mandate.

Those issues have bipartisan consensus, but members of the Freedom Caucus, the Republican hard-line group in the lower house, insist they block any proposal that includes aid to Ukraine. In addition, they want the proposed money for Israel to come from funds earmarked for the Inflation Reduction Act, passed by Democrats last year, which includes subsidies and tax breaks for the manufacture of electric cars on American soil .

Specifically, Johnson’s alternative proposal includes $4 billion in military assistance for Iron Dome (the Israeli missile defense system); 4.4 billion in weapons, ammunition and military training; 3.5 billion in military funding to help Israel arm itself, and another ambiguously defined 4.4 billion for the Pentagon to use to defend its ally against “attacks on Israel.” An aid that will be added to the approved annual contribution of 3.8 billion dollars.

Blinken and Austin call for immediate action from the Senate

The Biden administration brought two special envoys to the Capitol this Tuesday to defend their proposal against the opposition of recalcitrant Republicans. The Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has insisted in a session in the Senate that it is necessary to maintain support for Ukraine, which has so far served to turn the Russian invasion into a “strategic defeat”. He also warned that “the US’s adversaries are betting that we are too divided at home to maintain our foreign support. That’s what we’re playing with with additional national security aid.”

For his part, the Secretary of Defense, Austin Lloyd, has equated Israel and Ukraine as “democracies fighting against ruthless enemies who want to annihilate them”. “We will not let Hamas or Putin win,” he added. The statements of the representatives of the White House have been interrupted on several occasions by dozens of demonstrators who, with their hands painted red, have demanded a cease-fire in Gaza. A third pacifist way, which is growing among American society but which in Congress only has the support of the most progressive sector of the Democratic Party.

2023-11-01 07:37:48
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