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Senior Democrats who had taken the unusual step of holding out relented to pressure from the Biden administration and allowed a multibillion-dollar sale of weapons to move ahead.
A Biden administration plan to sell $18 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets to Israel is moving forward after two top Democratic holdouts in Congress signed off on the deal, according to multiple people familiar with the sale.
Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, who had publicly opposed the transfer by citing Israel’s tactics during its campaign in Gaza, has lifted his hold on the deal, one of the largest U.S. arms sales to Israel in years. Mr. Meeks said that the sale would take years to deliver and that he supported the Biden administration’s plans to hold up the sale of other munitions.
“I have been in close touch with the White House and National Security Council about this and other arms cases for Israel, and have repeatedly urged the administration to continue pushing Israel to make significant and concrete improvements on all fronts when it comes to humanitarian efforts and limiting civilian casualties,” Mr. Meeks said in a statement.
Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who had delayed signing off but never publicly said he was blocking the deal, also agreed to allow it to go forward, joining top Republicans who had agreed to the plan months ago. The decision by Mr. Cardin and Mr. Meeks to approve the sale was reported earlier by The Washington Post.
Closing out the informal consultation process with Congress allows the State Department to move forward on officially notifying Congress of the sale, the final step before sealing the deal. The department declined to comment on the arms orders, including on whether it would soon give that formal notification.
Congressional sign-off on arms sales has almost always been a foregone conclusion when it comes to Israel. That changed in recent months amid mounting concern in the United States about Israel’s conduct of the war against Hamas, and as Democrats in Congress have increasingly hinted that they might use their leverage over weapons transfers to demand that Israel change its tactics.
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