US stops defence aid to Israel, worth $1 billion, given internal dispute in ruling Democrat party

Washington/Jerusalem: – The Biden administration has withheld USD 1 billion in defence aid to Israel because of an internal dispute within the ruling Democrat party. This was revealed when the US House of Representatives passed the ‘spending bill’ on Tuesday. US President Joe Biden has promised to continue defence assistance to Israel. But the incident in the House of Representatives shows that Biden has lost control over the parliament and the party.

In 2016, when Barack Obama, a Democrat, was president, a new agreement was reached between the United States and Israel. Under the agreement, the United States was to provide USD 38 billion in defence assistance to Israel over ten years, from 2017 to 2028. In the year 2020, the United States provided USD 3.8 billion in defence assistance to Israel. Of that, USD 500 million was for the Iron Dome and other missile systems. This year, President Biden had assured to give USD 1 billion for other missile systems and the Iron Dome.

The bill was annexed to the US spending bill. The Republican Party had already opposed the spending bill. Therefore, to pass this bill, all Democrat members needed to support the spending bill. However, the progressive group from the Democrat party strongly opposed the offer of this defence aid to Israel. Therefore, the offer of assistance, to Israel, through the passage of the spending bill was withdrawn. Although the spending bill has been passed, the internal divide within the Democrat party has been exposed.

Democrats castigated their colleagues and leadership. Democrat lawmaker Elissa Slotkin retorted that opposition to a system, which has saved thousands of lives with political motives, is a major problem. Member Ritchie Torres has questioned the morality of his fellow members who opposed the Israeli agencies. Brad Schneider has warned that in any case, we will try to finance the Israeli agencies.

Following this, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid held talks with the US leaders. Lapid informed in a statement that the non-approval of funding in the spending bill was a technical matter and that funding would be approved in the defence bill.