13 July 2023; MEMO: A group of pro-Israel Republican US senators have accused President Joe Biden of engaging in "an anti-Semitic boycott of Israel" and threatened to block any nomination put forward by the White House if it does not reverse its policy over the occupation state.
The row between Republican lawmakers and the Biden administration follows a recent decision by the US president to stop funding Israeli science and tech projects in the occupied West Bank. The decision reversed a Trump-era policy that allowed US taxpayer funding for research in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Fourteen Republican senators, led by Sen. Ted Cruz, threatened to derail the confirmation of State Department nominated officials should the Biden administration not reverse last month's decision to halt funding. The threat was issued in a letter sent to Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
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"Candidly, it is untenable for State Department officials to continue testifying to Congress that they support the US-Israel relationship and then — once out of view — to push policies designed to undermine that relationship," said the signatories. "Without reversing these trends, Congressional oversight and the expeditious vetting of nominees would become intractable."
In an argument that defied international law and defended Israel's ongoing annexation of Palestinian territory, the senators said that, "Any effort to deepen American policies that discriminate between territories Israel controlled before and after June 1967 will risk a full rupture in my/our ability to engage the Department of State on these issues." There exists a global consensus on the need to separate Israel from the occupied territories. Israel, though, has eroded that distinction and created a permanent occupation while refusing to grant basic human rights to millions of non-Jews.
The row demonstrates just how politicised Israel has become in Washington and the increasing tendency of supporters of the apartheid state to weaponise anti-Semitism against its critics. Under the US system, it only takes one senator to block a nominee at committee level, which opens the nomination process to exploitation.
The threat would be bad news for Biden, as a degree of bipartisan support is needed in order for him to get his nominees confirmed by the Senate, where the Democrats have a slim majority.
