Mitch McConnell Blasts the Idea of Making Aid to Israel Conditional
Jose Nino
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On November 27, 2023, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell poured cold water on the idea of placing conditions on military aid to Israel.
He described this proposal as “ridiculous.”
.“Our relationship with Israel is the closest national security relationship of any country in the world. And to condition, in effect, our assistance to Israel on their meeting our standards, it seems to me is totally unnecessary,” McConnell said, per a report by The Hill.
Although the majority of Congress largely supports Israel and wouldn’t want to impose limits on US military aid, there have been growing calls from some Democrats and Independent Senator Bernie Sanders to place conditions on US aid.
“The United States must make clear that while we are friends of Israel, there are conditions to that friendship and that we cannot be complicit in actions that violate international law and our own sense of decency,” Sanders recently wrote in a guest essay for The New York Times.
Per The Intercept, Sanders declared that he might push for a vote on conditioning the over $14 billion President Biden is looking to bankroll Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which, according to most conservative figures, has resulted in the deaths of at least 10,000 civilians.
Sanders should be commended here for at least taking a sensible step in limiting the damage being caused by the US’s unconditional support of Israel’s punitive military campaign in Gaza. The US needs to stop blindly supporting Israel. In fact, at this juncture, the US must pursue a full recalibration of relations with the Jewish state. After all, the Middle East is no longer a region of strategic interest for the US. Plus, Israel has a nasty habit of getting the US in entangling conflicts in the Middle East.
For once, can the US actually start pursuing its national interest?
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