The House of Representatives showed overwhelming bipartisan support for a $26 billion foreign aid bill that would provide funding to Israel and humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The bill predictably polarized the most right-wing and left-wing members of Congress. The former is furious about the State Department’s $9 billion in aid to civilians in Gaza, and the latter opposes any more deadly aid to Israel.
The bill passed with a vote of 366-58, and there was applause in the chamber after the bill passed.
The bill, which won a slim House Republican majority, also bans funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a Palestinian refugee agency with suspected ties to Hamas.
The bill’s passage was a major victory for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), navigating an exceptionally divided political environment. It is part of a wide-ranging package of bills that Johnson introduced on the House of Commons floor on Saturday, totaling about $95 billion in foreign aid. The package of bills includes aid for Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific region, as well as a fourth bill that includes various national security priorities.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson led passage of the bill, which includes $26 billion in aid to Israel and Gaza. (Photographer: Haiyun Jiang/Bloomberg via Getty Images | Photo by JACQUELYN MARTIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
The vote came amid dramatic escalation in tensions in the Middle East, particularly between Israel and Iran, as Israel is at war with the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas.
Israel carried out limited strikes against Iran on Friday in retaliation for Tehran’s barrage of airstrikes against Israel, the first direct attack by the Islamic fundamentalist government. No major damage or casualties were reported in either incident.
In the wake of the Hamas attack on October 7, a growing faction of left-wing members of Congress criticizes the Israeli invasion, and the issue of Israel has become a divisive issue even for the Democratic Party.
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Israel launched a limited offensive against Iran on Friday, April 19th. (IRGC)
Most Republicans have been united in their support for Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative government. Mr Johnson has so far introduced two Israel funding bills in the House of Commons, one that would offset funding with cuts to the IRS and another that would provide funding without any strings attached. It was something. Neither was taken up in the Senate.
But this time, fiscal conservatives blamed offsets and lack of funding for Gaza.
Johnson’s $95 billion foreign aid plan receives key House vote after Democrats help push it forward
“I will always support Israel, our greatest ally in the Middle East. However, I stand up today to express serious concerns about a very flawed supplement. We supported the first security supplement, which was paid for financially and will continue to be.” That cost was offset by repealing the unprecedented expansion of the Internal Revenue Service by Democrats, now without repeal. “We are considering a bill to borrow an additional $26 billion,” the House said. Congressman Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), a member of the Freedom Caucus, said this during debate on the bill.
Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) spoke out against the Israel funding bill on Saturday. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc, via Getty Images)
“The bill also includes $400 million for FEMA, which has nothing to do with aid to Israel, and more than $9 billion for humanitarian assistance in Gaza and the West Bank.”
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Clyde cited a report by the Heritage Foundation that says Hamas and other terrorist groups control all flows of international humanitarian aid to Gaza.
“Therefore, it is very likely that U.S. taxpayer-funded humanitarian aid to Gaza, including some of the aid in this bill, will once again be diverted to support further Hamas attacks against Israel.” he said.
