Washington, DC – US President Joe Biden has signed into law a $94bn foreign funding bill that includes military aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, ending a months-long legislative impasse in Washington over the assistance.
Biden hailed the passage of the law on Wednesday as a “good day for world peace”, saying that the measure makes the United States safer.
The package will provide Israel with $17bn in additional aid despite growing calls for restricting US assistance to the country over abuses in Gaza, where the Israeli military has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians.
However, the US president framed the new assistance as an effort to help Israel protect itself from attacks against Iran.
“My commitment to Israel – I want to make clear again – is ironclad,” Biden told reporters. “The security of Israel is critical.”
Palestinian rights advocates were quick to denounce the measure, stressing that Israel stands accused before the International Criminal Court of committing genocide against Palestinians.
“It is beyond unconscionable that Congress and President Biden are sending the Israeli military billions of dollars worth of weapons – with no strings attached – to massacre, starve, and expel Palestinian civilians,” IfNotNow, a youth-led progressive Jewish group, said in a statement.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said Biden “passed the moral point of no return” by signing the bill.
“President Biden has betrayed the soul of our nation and disregarded the will of the American people, who overwhelmingly support a ceasefire and oppose unconditional aid to Israel,” CAIR director Nihad Awad said in a statement.
The US Senate approved the bill on Tuesday in a 79-18 vote. Days earlier, the House of Representatives also adopted the measure.
Late on Tuesday, US Senator Bernie Sanders decried the approval of the supplemental foreign funding bill, calling it a “dark day” for the US Senate. He added that Washington should not fund right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war on Gaza.
“The housing in Gaza is destroyed; the infrastructure in Gaza is destroyed; the health care system in Gaza is destroyed; the educational system in Gaza is destroyed. Enough is enough,” Sanders said in a statement.
The measure had stalled in Congress for months amid competing political agendas.
Some Republicans have expressed growing scepticism about sending more taxpayer dollars to Ukraine as the Russian invasion…