(NewsNation) — President Joe Biden told Americans on Thursday night that the country must deepen its support of Ukraine and Israel in the middle of two vastly different, unpredictable and bloody wars, proposing an aid package that would send billions to both countries.
“There is a political strategy involved in hitching these issues together,” Niall Stanage said. “The leadership on both parties does want aid for Ukraine and does want aid for Israel. Therefore, if you put them both together, that makes people who are reluctant to one, they would then have to vote against the other.”
Stanage, a White House columnist at The Hill, joined “NewsNation Prime” to discuss the ongoing conflict in Israel, saying an aid package will likely pass as soon as the House elects a speaker.
Meanwhile, some military experts believe both Israel and Hamas are committing war crimes. While Biden has previously cautioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the “rules of war,” saying breaking these rules will likely not impact whether Israel receives aid from the U.S.
“The Israeli occupation of the West Bank has been going on for decades, illegal under international law, but American politicians of either party don’t seem particularly eager to do anything about it,” Stanage said. The annexation of land on which Israeli settlements are built would be illegal under international law.
He added, “Americans view Israel as endangered encircled by Arab nations and under threat in large. Other regions of the world, not only the Arab world, the situation has seen exactly the inverse of that, where Israel is seen, I think, as the aggressor occupying Palestinian lands in the West Bank.”
President Biden has proposed a nearly $106 billion aid package which includes emergency funding for Israel and Ukraine as well as to improve U.S. border security.
