Criticizing a provision in the proposed national security supplemental funding bill, more than a dozen Senate Democrats sponsored a bill this week that would maintain Congressional oversight of military assistance funding for Israel.
Introduced by U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), the bill would maintain the status quo, keeping in place a notification requirement for the White House to notify Congress of all assistance provided to foreign militaries. However, in recent legislation, some sought to strike oversight requirements for funding Israel under the Foreign Military Financing Program, essentially keeping arms sales to Israel in the dark.
In this, Israel would be an exception, given that check and balance applies to all arms sales abroad.
“This amendment is critical to maintain Congress’s oversight responsibility over international arms sales,” U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CN), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, and a cosponsor of the bill, said. “It simply maintains the current notification process for U.S. arms sales above a certain threshold, which is crucial to ensuring transparency for U.S. arms sales abroad. Israel and other close allies enjoy a shorter notification timeframe, but it would be problematic to eliminate that notification entirely for any country.”
Other sponsors included U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Rev. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Tom Carper (D-DE), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).