Americas

Johnson’s Standalone Bill for Israel Aid Sets House on ‘Collision Course’ With Biden

07:08 GMT, 1 November 2023
© AFP 2023 / TOM BRENNER
Oleg Burunov
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Mike Johnson, who was recently sworn in as the speaker of the US House of Representatives, made a resolute pledge to prioritize strengthening the Jewish state as his initial legislative action.
Sputnik
House Speaker Mike Johnson's recent release of a bill that would send $14.3 billion to Israel without addressing aid to Ukraine puts the US lower chamber on a collision course with POTUS, the White House and the Democratic-controlled Senate, an American newspaper reported.

The newspaper quoted unnamed White House officials as warning that they may veto the Republican-written bill. They said in a statement that “rather than putting forward a package that strengthens American national security in a bipartisan way, the bill fails to meet the urgency of the moment by deepening our divides and severely eroding historic bipartisan support for Israel’s security.”

The officials called the bill a document that “inserts partisanship into support for Israel, making our ally a pawn in our politics, at a moment we must stand together.”

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in turn, made it clear that President Joe Biden would veto the bill, claiming that the document was "bad for Israel, bad for the Middle East region, and bad for our [US] own national security.

“Congress has consistently worked in a bipartisan manner to provide security assistance to Israel, and this bill threatens to unnecessarily undermine that longstanding approach. Bifurcating Israel security assistance from the other priorities in the national security supplemental will have global consequences,” OMB added.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, for his part, voiced hope that Johnson “realizes that this [the release of the standalone bill] is a grave mistake and quickly changes course.”

He was joined by House Republicans Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who said they would oppose the bill. In a social media post, Greene insisted that the US "needs to focus on spending Americans' hard-earned tax dollars on our own country and serving the American people, not the rest of the world."

Johnson's remarks were made following the introduction of the bill on Monday, in response to a bipartisan group of Senate lawmakers urging Congress to address both the Palestinian-Israel conflict and the situation in Ukraine concurrently.
This followed the newly elected 56th Speaker telling a US news outlet about a “pressing and urgent need” to release the standalone bill for Israel. “There are lots of things going on around the world that we have to address. And we will. But, right now, what’s happening in Israel takes the immediate attention. And I think we have got to separate that and get it through,” the Speaker said. One US media outlet noted in this vein that Johnson’s remarks could be seen as an indication that President Joe Biden’s request for aid to Ukraine “will be further delayed”.
Johnson, when inaugurated as the new speaker last Wednesday, made a commitment to endorse Israel, refraining from acknowledging Ukraine in any way.
There is still a disagreement among House Republicans regarding the Ukraine aid while the US government is in urgent need of passing another stopgap funding bill before the looming November deadline. In early October, a US government shutdown was averted when Congress narrowly passed a last-minute stopgap spending bill to extend funding for another 45 days.
AmericasUSUS CongressMike JohnsonUS House of RepresentativesUkraineIsraelfundingJoe BidenPalestine-Israel conflict
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