US lawmakers from across the aisle on Capitol Hill say they will “stand with Israel” in its deadly offensive against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
On Monday, both Republican and Democrat lawmakers gathered at an event hosted by the National Leadership Assembly for Israel and expressed their opposition to any kind of criticism of Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians.
“We're here today to stand with Israel,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said at the event. “As long as I'm Speaker of the House, this will be our cause.”
The pro-Israel event came as the Tel Aviv regime has been relentlessly pounding the Gaze Strip for 22 consecutive days now. About 1,200 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks and Over 6,700 others have been injured.
Since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to escalate the war on Gaza Monday night, at least 100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed and many more injured. An Israeli tank shelling has also hit the fuel depot of Gaza’s only power plant.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas fighters have been launching retaliatory attacks against Israel. According to the Israeli army, the number of service members killed since the beginning of the Israeli war on Gaza has reached 53. However, Palestinian fighters say they've killed over 100 Israeli troops so far.
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) who attended the pro-Israel event on Monday said, “There is no moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas.”
“There is a moral disconnect between purveyors of terror, and defenders of people,” also said Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland), the Democratic Whip, at the event.
Other lawmakers who spoke at the event included House Majority Leader-elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-California), House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce (R-California), and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida), The Hill reported.
On Monday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) also warned that the Obama administration’s $225 million request to aid Israel during its current war may not be enough, as the Zionist regime continues to massacre Palestinians in Gaza.
Last week, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel sent a letter to congressional leadership requesting $225 million in additional US funding for Israel’s Iron Dome, which is a short-range rocket defense system designed to intercept rockets and artillery shells fired from a range of between four and 70 kilometers.
The money would be in addition to the $351 million that’s already under discussion for Iron Dome in fiscal 2015. It would bring total funding to $576 million, compared with the $176 million requested by the Pentagon for the year that begins on October 1.
But Reid said Tel Aviv will need even more money from Washington if the war continues.
“We should not give the Israeli people the minimum amount of aid and then cross our fingers and hope it all works out in the future,” Reid said. “We can do better and need to go further in protecting Israel.”
Israel’s brutal atrocities against Palestinians are heavily funded by Washington as under a current 10-year deal with Israel – signed in 2007 by the previous administration – over $3 billion of American taxpayers’ money is flowing to Israel in military aid every year.
The incumbent Democratic administration is reportedly considering an increase in Washington’s military aid to the Tel Aviv regime after 2017 when the current deal expires.
In a phone interview with Press TV on Monday, Bruce Gagnon, an American anti-war activist with the Global Network Against Weapons, said the United States is largely blamed for the atrocities Israel is committing against Palestinians “because our country sends Israel $3.1 billion per year.”
ISH/ISH
Posted By: Yaiqab Saint
Thursday, July 31st 2014 at 9:34AM
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