U.S. Approves Iron Dome Funding
Last week the United States House of Representatives approved $1 billion in spending on Israel’s Iron Dome. Just before boarding his flight from Ben-Gurion Airport to New York to speak at the United Nations, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called the decision a “sweeping victory.”
“At the moment of truth, we saw the representatives of the American people overwhelmingly support Israel, 420 to 9, in the vote on rearming Iron Dome,” he said. “There is a small anti-Israeli group that makes a lot of noise, but these people failed.”
Bennett was referring to factions in the Democratic party that hoped to halt Iron Dome funding. “Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), one of the nine who voted against the bill, told the House in her speech before the vote: ‘I will not support an effort to enable war crimes, human rights abuses and war crimes. We cannot be talking only about Israelis’ need for safety under a time when Palestinians are living under a violent apartheid system,’” worldisraelnews.com reported. But Ted Deutch (D-FL), who chairs the Foreign Affairs committee, rebuked her hateful rhetoric, saying, “I cannot—cannot allow one of my colleagues to stand on the floor of the House of Representatives and label the Jewish Democratic state of Israel an apartheid state. I reject it… When there is no place on the map for one Jewish state—that’s anti-Semitism, and I reject that.”
Bennett has good reason to celebrate the result of the spending decision. The overwhelmingly affirmative vote for the Iron Dome funding means Israel’s civilians will continue to be much safer than they would be if funding had been stripped. It’s still almost inconceivable that the Iron Dome, a brilliant defense mechanism incapable of attack, could be so problematic to people, but it sadly shows the depth of some of the United States’ politicians’ hatred for Israel. Still, a 420-9 positive vote proves that this nation is still in large part a friend of Israel, and that alliance must be an encouragement to the one Jewish nation on Earth.
