Mitch McConnell Backs Biden’s $106bn aid Request for Israel and Ukraine – Mitch McConnell offered a strong endorsement on Sunday of the Joe Biden White House’s $106bn aid proposal to Israel and Ukraine, saying he and the president were essentially “in the same place” on the issue.
During an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, McConnell, the influential Republican Senate leader, rejected the idea of separating assistance for the two countries, a move which some of his GOP colleagues in the Senate had proposed, deeming it as “a mistake.” The Republican leader provided substantial support for the White House’s $106 billion request, which included $14 billion for Israel, $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, and an extra $14 billion for enhancing security along the US-Mexico border.
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Moreover, an additional $10 billion would be designated for humanitarian relief, and an extra $7 billion for the Indo-Pacific region. Nine Republican senators wrote a letter to McConnell on Thursday saying that Ukraine and Israel aid should not be paired together. “These are two separate conflicts and it would be wrong to leverage support of aid to Israel in an attempt to get additional aid for Ukraine across the finish line,” the group wrote.
However, McConnell rejected that view on Sunday. “I view it as all interconnected,” he said during the interview. “If you look at the Ukraine assistance, let’s – let’s talk about where the money is really going. A significant portion of it’s being spent in the United States in 38 different states, replacing the weapons that we sent to Ukraine with more modern weapons. So we’re rebuilding our industrial base,” he said.
He added: “No Americans are getting killed in Ukraine. We’re rebuilding our industrial base. The Ukrainians are destroying the army of one of our biggest rivals. I have a hard time finding anything wrong with that. I think it’s wonderful that they’re defending themselves.” During a speech to the nation on Thursday, Biden also made his case for why the two issues were connected.
The president said Hamas and the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, “represent different threats, but they share this in common: they both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy – completely annihilate it.” “If we walk away and let Putin erase Ukraine’s independence, would-be aggressors around the world would be emboldened to try the same.”
“The risk of conflict and chaos could spread in other parts of the world – in the Indo-Pacific, in the Middle East, especially in the Middle East.” The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, also said on Sunday that Israel had restored some water and power access to Gaza. “Israel turned on one of the pipelines six or seven days ago – there are a couple of other pipelines that we’d like to see restored,” the US’s top diplomat said during an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Blinken also noted that 20 trucks that were recently allowed in to Gaza provided clean water, saying: “We’re getting more that we hope will be moving as early as today.” “We do have concerns about the spread of disease as a result of people drinking dirty water,” he said. “This is a work in progress. It’s something we’re at all the time.”
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Blinken also said Israel had no intention of governing Gaza long term after the war. “Israel cannot go back to the status quo,” he told NBC. “At the same time, what I’ve heard from the Israelis is absolutely no intent – no desire to be running Gaza themselves. They moved out of Gaza unilaterally, unconditionally a couple of decades ago. But they can’t be in a position where they’re constantly under threat of the most horrific terrorist attacks coming from Gaza.”
“So, something needs to be found that ensures that Hamas cannot do this again, but that also does not revert to Israeli governance of Gaza, which they do not want and do not intend to do.” On Sunday, both Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated that the United States anticipated an escalation of the Israel-Hamas conflict due to the involvement of Iran’s proxies. They affirmed that the Biden administration was prepared to respond if American personnel or armed forces were targeted in such hostilities.