Obama urged by US Senate to raise Israeli military aid
A large majority of lawmakers in the US Senate have called on President Barack Obama to quickly raise the current amount of annual US military aid to Israel which already surpasses $3 billion.
Eighty-three of Senate’s 100 senators, led by Republican Lindsey Graham and Democrat Chris Coons, made the plea to Obama by signing a bipartisan letter.
"In light of Israel's dramatically rising defense challenges, we stand ready to support a substantially enhanced new long-term agreement to help provide Israel the resources it requires to defend itself and preserve its qualitative military edge," said the letter, Reuters reported Monday, adding that the letter stopped short of suggesting a specific figure for the aid.
Washington has been providing the Israeli regime with $3.1 billion annually since a 2007 agreement with the George W. Bush administration.
Tel Aviv has indicated that it wants $4 billion to $4.5 billion in aid as part of a 10-year agreement that will go into effect from 2018, but the US officials have offered a lower figure of about $3.7 billion.
The senators also revealed in their letter that the Senate will consider boosting the US funding for joint missile programs with Israel.
Obama has requested $150 million for such programs as the Israeli Iron Dome and David's Sling missile systems, but lawmakers are reportedly willing to allocate hundreds of millions of dollar to those projects.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who is a 2016 presidential candidate, was among the 51 Republican lawmakers who signed the letter.
On the Democratic side, however, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who is challenging former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the presidential race, refused to be one of the 32 Democrats on board.
Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign assistance since World War II. US military assistance to Israel has amounted to $124.3 billion since it began in 1962, according to a recent congressional report.
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