Cruz Blocks Israel Bill Over Watered-Down Support for Jewish StateSen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) is blocking a piece of Israel-related legislation over concerns that the measure's language waters down support for the Jewish state, congressional sources confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon on Monday.
Cruz will also introduce an amendment to the legislation that strips the contested language and replaces it with a statement enshrining American support for Israel, according to a copy of that amendment also obtained by the Free Beacon. The senator will block the bill from moving forward until his amendment is considered.
The bill in question is the Israel Relations Normalization Act of 2021, which has been working its way through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and is now coming up for a vote in the Senate. The legislation broadly aims to solidify congressional support for Abraham Accords peace agreements but has been subject to increasing controversy in recent weeks due to the last-minute inclusion of language that would establish a different U.S. policy equivocating on diplomatic support for Israel and Palestinian statehood.
The changes prompted Cruz to pull his sponsorship of the original legislation late last month. Cruz says the current version of the bill would pour millions of dollars in aid into the Palestinian government and completely rewrite longstanding U.S. policy, which specifically supports Israel in its peace negotiations. Cruz's amendment would strip the language in question, bringing the bill back in line with established U.S. policy on the issue.............
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/cruz-blocks-israel-bill-over-watered-down-support-for-jewish-state/
