Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is spearheading an effort in Congress to tie aid to Israel to that nation’s plan to annex parts of the West Bank, according to Politico.
Anti-Israel Democrats have been threatening to connect Israeli aid to any number of causes in recent years, including the treatment of Palestinians and military campaigns against Hamas. But previous threats dealt with issues relating specifically to the Palestinians. Annexation is exclusively an internal affair of the Israeli government and people, with the debate getting more intense all the time. The Israelis don’t need a bunch of left-wing loons like AOC sticking their noses in what shouldn’t concern them.
Liberals are constantly carping on the United States intervening in the internal affairs of other nations. But it’s OK for the left to do it because…well, just because.
“Should the Israeli government continue down this path, we will work to ensure non-recognition of annexed territories as well as pursue legislation that conditions the $3.8 billion in U.S. military funding to Israel to ensure that U.S. taxpayers are not supporting annexation in any way,” Ocasio-Cortez’s letter reads. “We will include human rights conditions and the withholding of funds for the offshore procurement of Israeli weapons equal to or exceeding the amount the Israeli government spends annually to fund settlements, as well as the policies and practices that sustain and enable them.”
The American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) condemned the proposed letter, calling it a threat to U.S. and Israeli interests.
AIPAC opposes the letter being circulated by @RepAOC—cosigned by @RepJayapal, @RepRashida & @BettyMcCollum04—which explicitly threatens the U.S.-Israel relationship in ways that would damage American interests, risk the security of Israel & make a two-state solution less likely.
— AIPAC (@AIPAC) June 29, 2020
The lineup of groups supporting the letter includes the usual anti-Semitic suspects, Palestinian apologists, and radical leftists.
About 1,000 alumni of J Street’s student arm, J Street U, have signed onto a separate statement urging the organization to “support legislation that would reduce American military assistance to Israel should it decide to unilaterally annex large parts of the West Bank.” Ocasio-Cortez’s office said groups such as IfNotNow, Arab American Institute, Jewish Voice for Peace Action and Demand Progress have thrown their support behind her letter.
The threat to cut aid because of annexation is an idle one — this year. But what about the next election? The Democratic Party is becoming more radical with every passing election and will reach an anti-Israeli tipping point before too long. The move against Israel in Congress would be just the start. The United States runs diplomatic interference for the Jewish state at the UN and other venues — something they would lose if the U.S. government became hostile to Israel. Much of the rest of the world would gang up on Tel Aviv, complicating the lives of Israeli citizens with boycotts and the like.
The Israeli cabinet is preparing to discuss annexation later this week, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main coalition partner, Benny Gantz, thinks the plan should wait until after the coronavirus crisis has passed. There are many questions that would need to be answered before the Israeli people can get behind the annexation plan and the debate is intensifying.
AOC and the Democrats should mind their own business and concentrate on the election.
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