Democrats in the U.S. Senate have blocked a standalone Israel aid bill that was backed by Republicans.
There is a strong bi-partisan agreement in Washington D.C. that America should back Israel in its war with the Hamas terrorist group.
However, Democrats object to separating the issue from Ukraine.
They also don’t like that House Speaker Mike Johnson (LA) wants to fund Israel aid by cutting Democrat President Joe Biden’s $14 billion expansion to the IRS.
The Senate voted 51-48 to table a motion to vote on the House version of the bill from Senator Roger Marshall (KS).
Sen. Marshall described his motion as a “sneak attack.”
Despite objections from the left, the House version of the bill passed two weeks ago with support from a handful of Democrats.
Marshall called the Ukraine war “a separate, unrelated conflict with no end in sight.”
However, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has dismissed separating Israel and Ukraine.
Sen. Schumer calls it a “non-starter.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has also expressed a preference for packaging the issues together.
Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH), a pro-Trump Republican, said the two issues should be dealt with separately during debate on Tuesday.
“What I find interesting about the folks who are here today is they represent a cross-section of opinion on the Ukraine question,” Vance said Tuesday.
“Even Sen. Schmitt and Sen. Lee, as much as we agree, we don’t agree on every single permutation of how we address the Ukraine situation.
“What we do all agree on, though, is that the American people deserve a separate debate,” he said.
In a primetime Oval Office address last month, Biden tied Hamas together with Russia as common threats to world security and democracy.
He asked Congress to pass a combined $100 in foreign aid to Israel and Ukraine.
But the public has grown more skeptical of aiding Ukraine.
The Ukrainian government has received billions in American tax dollars to fund the endless war since Russia’s invasion last year.
There are even reports that a negotiated peace is in discussion, with Washington seeing the war as a hopeless stalemate.
Despite the Israel standoff, Congress remains united on one issue at least: the need to keep the government open and running.
The parties came together Wednesday to avert a government shutdown, pushing into the new year the business of debating long-term spending levels.
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