ICYMI: Sen. Paul Continues to Push for Cuts to Israel’s Aid

NJDC — January 17, 2013 – 2:36 pm | Israel | Rand Paul | Republicans Comments (0) Add a comment

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)—a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—is continuing his push for cuts to Israel’s assistance from the United States. Regardless of how Paul tries to spin his plans for Israel’s aid, cuts are still cuts. Period.

Additionally, Paul raises questions about the funding of the Iron Dome missile defense system. Let’s be clear: After Iron Dome’s performance during Operation Pillar of Defense, Israeli leaders see only benefits from the Iron Dome—and U.S. funding is vital, as they have freely admitted.

Leading Democratic Senators took a stand against Paul’s aid cuts back when he first started pushing them. But from pro-Israel Republicans, all we hear is crickets.

JTA reported on a conference call he held following his most recent trip to Israel:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said he does not favor immediate cuts to defense assistance to Israel and favors intelligence and development cooperation, but he believes that Israel would ultimately benefit from economic independence from the United States….

‘Something I would be in favor of would not be immediate, dramatic or draconian, it would be evolving,’ he said of his favoring cuts in assistance to Israel. ‘I’m for an independent, strong Israel that is not a client state and not a reliant state.’

Asked particularly about missile defense cooperation, he said there was a ‘great argument’ for such programs and he believes that American cities should have missile defense infrastructure.

Of Iron Dome, the Israeli anti-missile system that Israel says repelled 80 percent of rocket attacks during the recent Gaza War, Rand said: ‘There’s a great argument for the Iron Dome,’ although he would want to examine ‘exactly how it is funded.’

Currently, Iron Dome is funded by hundreds of millions of dollars in grants on top of the $3 billion Israel receives annually in defense assistance from the United States.  

Paul said he understands how his calls for reducing aid to Israel make him an outlier among fellow senators, but that he believes his position is more pro-Israel than theirs.

Comments

There are no comments for this entry