Lois Frankel: “This is the final amendment to the bill, which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill…”

“This is the final amendment to the bill, which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will re-appropriate resources in areas critical to our national security and to defend Israel, our most important ally in the Middle East. The motion to recommit adds $20 million in funding for Israel's Iron Dome defense program and $5 million for the Arrow defense program in order to bolster protection against short- and long-range missile attacks. Now here's something on which we can all agree. Defending Israel is in the interest of our national security. The bond between the United States and Israel is rooted in our shared national interest and our common values of democracy, rule of law, and basic human rights. Israel's security is our security. The same forces threatening Israel jeopardize the United States. And this is not a partisan issue. All of us who have been to Israel are struck by how close Israelis live to neighbors who want to destroy them. As a former mayor of a city, I ran a city where we had real problems like gangs and crimes; but never did I have to worry about the towns next door shooting rockets at my residents. I can't imagine what it would be like to be the mayor of Sderot. In 2008, before we had Iron Dome, a surge in Hamas rocket attacks forced Israel to launch a ground operation that, tragically, claimed over a thousand Israeli and Palestinian lives. Fast forward to last November.…”