In 410-4 Vote, House Approves Millions in Extra Funding for Israel’...

$205 Million in Addition to Billions in Military Aid Already Provided

Email This |
Print This
|


Share

This


|
Funding for Israel’s Missile Defense">Comment | Antiwar
Forum

Despite moving at a snail’s pace on most policy decisions, the Obama Administration was still able to muster surprising alacrity when
it came down to providing Israel with additional money.

So exactly one week after President Obama decided that the US should p... to pay for its
“Iron Dome” missile defense system, the House
of
Representatives passed the measure, with a 410-4 margin.

The first phase of development, test runs, and manufacture of the syste..., meaning the US funding will pay
for materially all of this phase. The $205 million is above and beyond
the roughly $3 billion in military aid the US sends to Israel annually.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman said the vote was vital, citing “the

looming threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.” Of course it could be
pointed out yet again that America’s own National Intelligence Estimate
shows Iran having no such program, but in this case it doesn’t even
matter.

The Iron Dome system is intended for “very short range” rocket fire, primarily the intermittent rockets from
the Gaza Strip that hit open fields in southern Israel, and would be
completely useless against any missile from as far away as Iran, nuclear
or otherwise.

In fact, this was one of the major reasons Israel was seeking the money, as many questioned the wisdom of spending $50,000 per missile to shoot down commodity rockets that cost only a few hundreds dollars
apiece, and the

Israeli military declined to include the project in its own bu....

The four Representatives voting against the resolution were John Conyers (D – MI), Dennis Kucinich (D – OH), Ron Paul (R – TX), and Pete Stark (D – CA)..