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November 17, 2024
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Few issues in the U.S. Congress have as much bipartisan support as pro-Israel legisla­tion. It is difficult to find a member of the Sen­ate or House in either party who, at least pub­licly, is not claiming undying love and support for Israel and its military’s Operation Protec­tive Edge.

But last week, there was a rare moment of uncertainty in regards to where emergen­cy funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile de­fense system would come from, and whether the proposed funding could survie the parti­sanship and inaction Congress is known for.

In a dramatic about-face, the Senate and House on Aug. 1—the day both bodies were set to adjourn for August recess—authorized $225 million in emergency funding to replen­ish Israel’s dwindling stockpile of Tamir mis­siles for the Iron Dome. On Monday, Presi­dent Barack Obama signed the funding bill into law.

The Iron Dome funds were initially tied up over their inclusion in the Emergency Supple­mental Appropriations Act of 2014 (S. 2648), which was blocked July 31 by Senate Repub­licans. That bill, introduced July 23 by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Bar­bara Mikulski (D-Md.), became mired in a bit­ter, partisan fight given its inclusion of funds requested by Obama to handle the influx of juvenile asylum-seekers crossing the Mexi­can border into America. Less controversial­ly, the original appropriations bill also includ­ed emergency funds for agencies involved in fighting wildfires in the western U.S.

After the eventual approval of the Iron Dome funding on Aug. 1, Sens. Lindsey Gra­ham (R-S.C.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) held a joint press conference in which they re­iterated the Senate’s support for the state of Israel in light of Hamas’s violation of a 72-hour humanitarian cease-fire that day.

“The message today from the United States Senate needs to be sent and it was sent,” said Graham. “Not only are we going to give you (Israel) more missiles, we’re gon­na be a better friend. We’re going to fight for you in the international court of public opin­ion, we’re going to fight for you in the Unit­ed Nations.”

“As we speak, hundreds if not more rock­ets will be raining down on the nation of Isra­el, and if it were not for Iron Dome, the situ­ation would be devastation, chaos, and mass casualties in Israel,” said McCain. “Thanks [to] Iron Dome, which was a U.S.-Israeli project, the people of Israel are relatively safe. But they were running out of missiles, they were run­ning out of capability, and there’s still thou­sands more rockets that can be fired from Gaza. … So from a practical standpoint, this was an urgent need. We could not go out [for recess] for a month and five weeks and not act to help replenish their supply of Iron Dome missiles.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch Mc­Connell (R-Ky.) had earlier called for sep­arate legislation on Iron Dome funding, rather than having the funds included in the border bill, knowing that Senate Re­publicans would oppose any bill bow­ing to Obama’s refugee-related funding re­quests, but at the same time not wanting to appear to rebuff Israel.

The emergency funding was requested by U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in a letter to Congress and, according to Sen. Mikulski, Senate appropriations staff­ers were briefed by Israeli embassy staff­ers about the urgent need.

Already this year, Congress had provid­ed $235 million for Iron Dome research, development, and production, according to the Congressional Research Service. Mi­kulski said each Iron Dome missile costs Israel about $50,000. During the latest Gaza conflict, Israel fired more than 500 such missiles at some of the approximate­ly 2,700 Hamas rockets bound for the Jew­ish state, with a 90-percent interception rate.

Knowing that the GOP would never ac­quiesce to the president’s border funding re­quests, Senate Democrats decided to include Iron Dome funding in Mikulski’s bill, hoping  that the unwillingness of any Republican sen­ator to vote against pro-Israel legislation might provide the chance to carry the entire border bill through the Senate. And even if the bill would be rejected by the House, Republicans could be blamed for voting against pro-Israel legislation, Democrats reasoned.

Meanwhile, the House was wrapped up in its own, much smaller border fund­ing bill. Unlike the Senate’s emergency appropriations bill, the House did not tie Iron Dome funding to any of the other bills it was debating. Pro-Israel members of the House were concerned that if the Senate did not pass a stand-alone Iron Dome funding bill, the request would need to be delayed until the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1.

“The issue that’s happening [with Iron Dome funding] in the Senate is playing politics, you don’t play politics with peo­ple’s lives,” said Rep. Mark Meadow (R-N.C.).

House Democrats, meanwhile, enter­tained themselves while watching Re­publicans fail to gain enough votes to pass their border security plan.

“If the Israelis are saying they need emergency [funding] for the Iron Dome, presumably that means that they think they might run out of missiles,” Rep. Jer­rold Nadler (D-N.Y.) told JNS.org. “Maybe someone in the American military is say­ing to the Republicans [that they] don’t think [Israel will] run out. How do you take that chance? We’re not going to be here [during recess]. Why not do it now? Why wait?… I don’t understand it.”

On July 31, as the House retreated into meetings for the day in order to regroup and possibly schedule more votes, atten­tion shifted to the Senate, where Mikuls­ki’s bill was opened for debate and a vote that evening.

Since the emergency funding bill au­thorized un-budgeted funds to be allocat­ed, the Senate was first required to waive the spending caps required under the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. But a vote to waive the act and proceed to the emergency funding bill was defeated by Republicans.

What followed was a dramatic, near­ly cinematic confrontation between the two sides—a scene reminiscent of a western-style gunfight, pitting Democrat Harry Reid, a visibly exhausted but de­termined majority leader from Nevada, against Minority Whip John Cornyn of Texas.

Reid began amending Mikulski’s bill with different combinations, each time asking for unanimous consent, knowing Cornyn would object. The combinations came first in pairs—Iron Dome and wild­fire funding—and then individually, sav­ing Iron Dome for last.

Predictably, Cornyn objected on eve­ry combination, saying that the spending exceeded the caps required by the budget act which the Senate had just voted not to waive. Finally, Reid asked for unani­mous consent, but just for the Iron Dome funding. This time, instead of Cornyn, the objection was raised by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who is considered the Senate’s most ideological budget hawk. Coburn’s move saved other Republicans from hav­ing to object to a pro-Israel bill.

“Mr. President, reserving the right to object, would the senator from Nevada, the majority leader, consider an amend­ment that would modify his request that would provide an offset for this bill?” asked Coburn.

This time, Reid declined and Coburn maintained his objection, ending that evening’s Iron Dome funding fight. But with the emergency funds’ passage one day later, the epic showdown would be­come nothing more than a footnote.

By Dmitriy Shapiro/JNS.org/ Washington Jewish Week

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