July 27, 2016 | Quoted by The Tower

Dem VP Nominee, Bipartisan Group of Senators Urge More Funding for Israel’s Missile Defense

A bipartisan group of senators has signed a public letter urging the Senate Armed Services Committee to include an additional $320 million for Israeli missile defense systems in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which sets the Pentagon’s annual budget.

Nineteen Republicans and 17 Democrats, led by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), have so far signed onto the letter, which proposes that the Senate’s NDAA should match the funding levels for Israeli defense included in the version of the bill passed by the House of Representatives. Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine (D-Va.) was among the senators who signed the letter, a stance in line with a March declaration by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton calling for the U.S. to bolster Israel’s missile defense. The House version of the NDAA fully funded Israeli missile defense systems, including the Iron Dome, the Arrow, and David’s Sling. These systems would be co-produced in the United States, bringing economic benefits to the country. Senators and representatives are planning to combine the two bills to “produce a conference report to both chambers for approval before sending it to the president’s desk,” The Hill reported.

Funding for Israeli missile defense systems can also help mitigate the risk of a major conflict breaking out between Israel and the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, former Treasury official Jonathan Schanzer said during a panel hosted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies on Monday. Limiting Hezbollah’s ability to inflict major damage on Israel will help lessen the severity of Jerusalem’s response, he explained.

When you look at the lessons of the Gaza War of 2014, whatever you say about the way that it ended or the way that it was not resolved, the key to preventing a much more bloody conflict was missile defense for the Israelis. I don’t know exactly how much Israel has or how much Israel needs in order to counter 150,000 rockets from Lebanon, reports are that it can be roughly 1,000 or more a day during that conflict. If those rockets hit northern Israel, if they hit deeper into Israel, that will precipitate a ground conflict, there is almost no doubt about that. So the key here is to ensure that Israel remains safe through missile defense, through those countermeasures. If it’s not able to do so, then we have a real problem. So I think that in terms of what Congress can do, it’s just essentially to make sure that Israel is prepared for this from a defense perspective. That might prevent the war that we don’t want to see.

Brig. Gen. (ret.) Yakov Shaharabani, who spoke alongside Schanzer, agreed with his assessment and added that current Israeli missile defense systems like Iron Dome and David’s Sling are “a strategic game changer” that give the Israeli government more time to consider a wider range of retaliatory options.

Read the full article here

Issues:

Issues:

Hezbollah Israel

Topics:

Topics:

Democratic Party Hezbollah Hillary Clinton Iran Iron Dome Israel Israelis Jerusalem Jonathan Schanzer Lebanon Republican Party The Hill United States United States Congress United States House of Representatives United States Senate Committee on Armed Services