It’s now been months since the Senate approved an expansive foreign aid package setting up support for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan — and the deal has not been brought to a vote on the floor (meaning by all members, broadly) in the House, where the chamber’s GOP leadership, led by Speaker Mike Johnson, has been resistant.
This week, Israel faced an attack from Iran reportedly involving drones and missiles as that Senate-backed legislative deal continues languishing.
“Israel’s anti-missile capabilities should be strengthened and similar defences should be sent to Ukraine. @SpeakerJohnson, please let the House vote on the [Israel & Ukraine] support bill,” said Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski on X (Twitter).
House Republicans have wheeled out their own proposals of support for Israel, but they’ve isolated these ambitions from potential support by the U.S. for Ukraine and others, making support for this GOP push for Israel tantamount to leaving Ukrainian personnel and others behind, for now. Johnson, in stumping for his ideal approach to all this, has at times completely glossed over the competing, more expansive vision for foreign aid backed by Democrats and some Republicans (at least in the Senate).
“I mean, look at the Israel funding — we talked about the supplemental. I’ve tried on two different occasions to push the Israel funding request through.… The president issued a veto threat over that!” Johnson said at a press conference towards the end of March. Claiming Biden was threatening to veto just “Israel funding” is deceptive. What the Biden administration opposed was funding Israel specifically combined with leaving other allies behind. The Biden administration and Biden himself have vocally supported pushes for foreign aid — including support for Israel — in the Senate.
