Progressive Democrats block $1b. for Iron Dome

Leadership says funding likely in 2022 bipartisan defense bill

Democratic Party leadership in the US House of Representatives removed about $1 billion of funding for Israel’s Iron Dome defense system on Tuesday.

The revision came after progressives in the party refused to vote for the broader bill in which the Iron Dome funding was included.

The progressive Democrats blocking the Iron Dome funding are among those who pushed to block arms to Israel during Operation Guardian of the Walls in May, according to Politico. That move was led by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of NY, Mark Pocan of Wisconsin and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

The Democrats could not get the bill passed without the progressives, because Republicans would not vote for the bill, either, citing the debt ceiling as its reason. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said “the debt ceiling will be raised... by the Democrats.”

House Democratic leadership said the Iron Dome funding will be included in an eventual bipartisan defense bill for fiscal year 2022.

The bill, including Iron Dome funding, was a continuing resolution (CR), providing funding in the interim period before a new budget is passed. It also included $28.6b in disaster aid and $6.3b. in funding for African refugees. If the CR does not pass by late December, there will likely be a government shutdown.

The White House began working on reversing the decision soon after it was announced, a diplomatic source said.

While funding for the Iron Dome will likely get passed in the coming months, Israel views the matter with urgency and would like it as soon as possible, a senior diplomatic source added.

Tensions between Israel and Hamas have spiked in recent weeks, including Gazan terrorists launching rockets into Israel.

The Iron Dome is a missile defense system that has stopped thousands of rockets launched by US-designated terrorist groups, like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, from striking the civilian centers at which they were aimed.

US President Joe Biden promised to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome batteries after the last round of fighting with Hamas in May, and again when he met with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in the

Oval Office last month.

Shortly before the House Democrats’ decision, Biden told the UN General Assembly: “The commitment of the United States to Israel’s security is without question and our support for an independent Jewish state is unequivocal.”

A senior diplomatic source said that just two hours before the Democrats changed course, Jerusalem was told the funding was on track. Israel wants to avoid being used for internal US political wrangling by Democrats or Republicans, the source added.

Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) tweeted that “Iron Dome is a defensive system used by one of our closest allies to save civilian lives. It needs to be replenished because thousands of rockets were fired by the Hamas terrorists who control Gaza. Consider this my pushing back against this decision.”

Rep. Ritchie Torres, a progressive Democrat from New York said “a missile defense system (i.e. Iron Dome) defends civilians from missiles. Hence the name. Only in a morally inverted universe would this be considered a ‘controversy.’”

Though the GOP did not intend to vote for the bill, Republican leader in the House Rep. Kevin McCarthy tweeted: “Democrats just pulled funding from the Iron Dome – the missile defense system that has saved countless lives in Israel from Hamas’ rocket attacks. While Dems capitulate to the antisemitic influence of their radical members, Republicans will always stand with Israel.” •

ago according to individuals who were present and why it’s relevant now more than ever.

“All countries that are genuinely committed to combating racism should refuse to attend Durban IV and the 20th-anniversary carnival,” said Anne Bayefsky, director of Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, president of Human Rights Voices, and moderator of the conference. “That’s why we held a counter-conference entitled ‘Fight Racism, Not Jews.’ The Durban deceit, the double-talk, the double-standards – and in particular, the discrimination – need to be exposed and rejected, period.”

ERDAN OPENED the conference by comparing Durban to Nazi propaganda.

“As the grandchild of Auschwitz survivors, I do not like to make comparisons to the Holocaust,” he said. “I will not say that Durban was like Kristallnacht or later Nazi atrocities. But I am reminded of a lesser-known event in Nazi history. One year before Kristallnacht, in November 1937, Josef Goebbels opened the antisemitic exhibition Der Ewige Jude, The Eternal Jew, at the library of the German Museum in Munich.

“This exhibit conveyed antisemitic messages in the most sophisticated and woke style of the era, blaming Jews for the spread of communism and the corruption of Aryan values,” he said. “This exhibit, viewed by over 400,000 visitors, helped convey the message that Jew-hatred was not just acceptable, but something that every enlightened person should adopt. In some ways, Durban was the Der Ewige Jude exhibit of the new antisemitism.

“Therefore, friends, it matters little what will actually be said on September 22 at Durban IV, or whether or not Israel will explicitly be mentioned,” the ambassador said. “The Durban process is rotten to its core, and any of its follow-up events are the fruits of a poisonous tree.”

Erdan called on more countries to boycott this week’s conference.

“Our demand that countries refuse to participate in the Durban process does not in any way contradict what must be our equally strong demand to speak up against racism wherever it appears.”

Pompeo said the Durban Declaration is “laced with antisemitism.”

“The Declaration was enthusiastically supported by terrorist leaders like Yasser Arafat, who rightly saw it not as a means to promote racial equality, but as a threat to Israel’s existence. There is no better indication of this truth than the countries which the original Durban Declaration listed as perpetrators of racism. No, not China, not Cuba nor any other bloody authoritarian regime was called out. Only Israel was identified as such,” he said.

“The Durban Conference in 2001 revived the ‘Zionism is racism’ slur, outrageously claimed that Israel was an apartheid state, distorted the Holocaust and made numerous Nazi analogies. It was the birthplace and catalyst of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. These things are not things the US or any nation which values freedom and denounces antisemitism should be celebrating,” Pompeo said.

“Rather, freedom-loving nations should embrace what Israel has always been and remains today. Israel stands now, just as it always has, as the sole truly democratic state in the Middle East. It’s a diverse nation, home to citizens of varied faiths and backgrounds.”

Voight said it was “the duty of all good people of all faiths to express outrage and demand truth be heard.” Regarding the UN conference, he said he was “outraged at those who make excuses for this barbarism, who

manufacture the propaganda of Palestinian victimhood, who refuse to recognize that this antisemitism is capable of destroying the Jewish nation.”

Several speakers at the counter-conference were black, including Likud MK Gadi Yevarkan, South African lawmaker Rev. Kenneth Meshoe and American historian Shelby Steele, pushing back against the anti-Israel message at Durban, which is meant to be a conference against racism with a special focus on people of African descent.

Yevarkan said he was speaking “truth to propaganda .... Durban was not and is not a conference for human rights. It is a crucifixion of Jewish human rights. And Durban is a moral embarrassment for the UN itself .... Durban has used and abused the suffering of millions of black South African victims of apartheid by racializing Israel.”