Congress is embroiled in a debate over how to go about passing aid to Ukraine and Israel. Yet, the path here isn’t nearly as important as that, one way or the other, Congress pass the funding for both allies expeditiously.
If Congress doesn’t act, America will be abandoning Israel and Ukraine in their hours of need, as our enemies escalate their war against Western allies.
We have a great many problems with the Biden administration’s approach to each of these theaters, including its failure to deter Iran and Russia, its insistence on only haltingly providing weapon systems to Ukraine, and its pressure on Israel to pause its military operations in Gaza. But the administration is correct to push for funding both to resist a two-pronged offensive against the West from hostile actors providing aid to one another.
The president’s initial proposal, which includes about $14 billion for Israel and $60 billion for Ukraine, is anathema to the House leadership. Under Speaker Mike Johnson, Republicans are opting for a different approach, splitting aid to the two countries. There is a case to be made for debating Israel and Ukraine aid separately, which would allow Republicans who support Israel but not Ukraine to vote their conscience on each measure. But there would have to be a guarantee that both bills would get to the floor; otherwise, there’d be a risk that the Republican leadership would be pressured to bottle up the Ukraine aid, even though there are bipartisan majorities in each chamber for another tranche of support.
House Republicans are also proposing that the Israel support bill slash funding for the IRS. While we would happily support such an approach in theory, and it’s our preference that new spending be offset by cuts elsewhere, this is a slot canyon to nowhere in the current circumstances. By coupling aid to Israel with a domestic priority on which Democrats are deeply committed, Republicans are sacrificing the clarity of any message about considering each aid package on its own, and such a measure will never pass the Senate or get Biden’s signature.
In the Senate, Democrats and Republicans have expressed support for one unified package, including funds for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, as well as tacked-on border funding. House Republicans will probably be best served negotiating over the substance of the proposal rather than the process, insisting on the enforcement of tougher rules at the border rather than simply more funding for the current failure, and pushing for whatever accountability and transparency provisions that might satisfy some Ukraine skeptics in their ranks.
Most important, though, is that Congress not stalemate over this funding at this moment. Israeli forces fighting in Gaza are also seeking to deter the entry of Iran’s other proxies into the war, and they need help quickly. Ukraine is struggling to keep up the pressure on the Russian military, and while time may seem less essential in a 21-month-old war nearing the end of the fighting season, ending the flow of weapons to Kyiv could lead to strategic collapse. Communist China is also taking advantage of the chaos, with unexpected military exercises near Taiwan.
While continued assistance for Ukraine is growing less popular within the GOP, most Republicans in Congress still understand that empowering Kyiv to fight this battle has benefits that ultimately accrue directly to America’s national security — namely, checking Putin’s expansionist aims and degrading his military.
These threats may arise in what we traditionally consider separate theaters, but they are undeniably linked, as the increasing tempo of visits between Xi, Putin, and Iran’s president indicates.
When the mullahs say “Death to America,” they don’t mean it as an empty slogan. When Xi mused to Putin during a visit to Moscow in March that they are driving “changes, the likes of which we haven’t seen in 100 years,” he wasn’t talking about the sort of changes that make the world safer for Americans.
Our enemies know what they are about. The U.S. Congress needs to show the same purpose and resolve.