The funding was stripped from a stopgap funding bill and scheduled for its own vote after liberals protested.
The House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a bill to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, just two days after it was pulled from a government funding package over objections from progressive lawmakers. Moderate Democrats had pushed for a standalone vote on the Iron Dome funding, which totals $1 billion, amid an uproar over leadership’s decision to strip it from a stopgap spending bill aimed at averting a government shutdown at the end of the month. The bill passed by a vote of 420-9, with eight Democrats and one Republican voting against it, plus two Democrats voting present. But for the majority party, the episode served to further expose the its internal strife over the U.S.-Israel relationship, with progressives demanding a policy doctrine that takes into account the plight of Palestinians and pushes back on Israel’s retaliatory offensives in Gaza.
