Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the chairwoman of the powerful U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, caused pro-Israel hearts to palpitate last December when she suggested to the Jerusalem Post that across the board funding cuts might apply to Israel.
She later claimed to have been misunderstood, and, indeed, funding for Israel has stayed at $3 billion per year.
Now she — and for that matter top Democrats on her committee — want to cut funding for the Palestinians because of their U.N. statehood push and because of their overtures to Hamas to set up a national unity government. (The overtures have come to nought, however, and the unity government is not the fait accompli Ros-Lehtinen and other Republicans have described.)
Just now, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer needled her on her proposal to cut funding to the Palestinians, noting that the Israeli defense establishment opposes it because of the stability it helps to provide.
This part of her answer popped out at me:
I understand that Israel might want this funding for the Palestinians or that funding for Israel. I’m worried about the U.S. taxpayers.
To be fair, given the context of Blitzer’s questions, Ros-Lehtinen might not have been thinking about direct funding for Israel, and might instead have been abbreviating another thought; that is, she might have meant "this funding for the Palestinians or that funding for (the Palestinians that) Israel (believes benefits its security.)"
Still, it’s an interesting way to phrase her reply.
UPDATE: Brad Goehner, Ros-Lehtinen’s spokesman e-mails to assure me that she was indeed referring to Israel’s possible advocacy for funding for other entities (the Palestinians, the U.N.), and not at all to direct funding:
She was in no way shape or form suggesting that U.S. assistance to Israel should be reduced. She’s never supported that, and the State Authorization bill that she authored and the Committee passed in July provided for full funding of security assistance to Israel.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
