2024-04-17 21:47:02
After long months of waiting and obstruction, the US House of Representatives is preparing to vote on separate bills to provide military aid to Israel and Ukraine, but this move threatens to create a new political chaos in Congress that could result in Speaker Mike Johnson falling victim. Johnson announced on Wednesday that the lower chamber of the legislative institution would vote on Saturday on providing military aid to Washington’s two allies. President Joe Biden quickly announced his support for this move, stressing that he would sign the bills once they are passed by both chambers of Congress.
Published on: 04/17/2024 – 23:47
5 minutes
After waiting and waiting a long time, he will vote The Congress Finally, separate bills include providing military aid to Ukraine and Israel. These bills remained stuck in the Council for many months due to disagreements within the Republican Party and others related to the White House’s refusal to vote on them separately. But military aid returned to the list of priorities again after the attack launched by Iran on Israel in response to the targeting of the Iranian consulate in Damascus. US President Joe Biden announced his support for a vote on providing military aid to Kiev and Tel Aviv, calling on Congress to expedite its passage.
This vote will allow Ukraine to obtain much-needed aid for its military forces, which suffer from a shortage of ammunition as they continue their fight against Russian forces, and Biden has urged Congress to expedite the passage of the bill.
Biden said, according to a statement issued by the White House, that if Congress approves the funding project, “I will immediately sign it into law in order to send a message to the world that we stand with our friends, and we will not allow Iran or Russia to succeed.”
The Democratic president wrote in an article published in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, “If the two countries (Israel and Ukraine) are able to fully defend their sovereignty, they depend on American aid to do so, including weapons,” adding, “We are facing a pivotal moment.”
Representatives will vote on four draft laws. The first project provides for the provision of aid, especially military, to Ukraine amounting to approximately $61 billion.
Another draft law also provides for the allocation of more than $26 billion to support Israel and billions of dollars for Taiwan.
The White House gave cautious support to these new projects on Tuesday, before Biden announced his explicit support for them.
“Both Ukraine and Israel are under attacks by shameless enemies who seek to eliminate their existence,” he said in the article published on Wednesday.
He pointed out that Russian President Vladimir Putin “wants to subjugate the Ukrainian people and annex their nation to a new Russian empire.”
As for Israel, Biden considered that “the Iranian government wants to destroy it, and thus erase the only Jewish state in the world from the map,” stressing that the United States “should never accept any of these results.”
Ukraine is suffering from a severe shortage of ammunition in the midst of its war with Russia, while all American aid provided to it in this context has been exhausted.
For its part, on Saturday night and Sunday, Israel faced an unprecedented attack by Iran in response to the bombing of Tehran’s consulate in Damascus. The attack came in light of escalating regional tensions against the backdrop of the war in Gaza.
The Senate approved a $60 billion military and economic aid package for Ukraine in February. However, Republicans in the House of Representatives refused to consider the text in light of disagreements with Democrats on several issues, including the immigration issue.
If the Republican-majority House of Representatives adopts the new texts on Saturday, they will be transferred to the Democratic-majority Senate for study and approval, and will then be transferred to Biden’s office for signature.
Johnson is the potential victim
But a new crisis looms on the horizon of the House of Representatives against the backdrop of these bills. A new Republican representative has announced that he will support efforts to impeach Chairman of the Board From his position after Johnson confirmed the progress towards submitting the bills for a vote.
The former Speaker of the Council, Kevin McCarthy, was dismissed last year in a move led by Republican Party representatives who support former President Donald Trump. The House of Representatives in particular, and Congress in general, experienced successive weeks of paralysis due to the vacancy of the position of president, and the failure of several attempts to elect a new president.
Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had previously announced a measure to impeach Johnson, said he had plunged the Republican Party “into chaos by doing favors for Democrats and adopting Biden’s agenda.”
She added in a tweet to Mansifah
However, the Speaker of the House of Representatives stressed that he will continue in his position, and told the media, “I will not resign,” describing the threat of no confidence in him as “ridiculous.”
France 24/AFP
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