State Department stresses US administration won’t cut aid to Israel after overhaul law passed

US State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel says the Biden administration will not cut aid to Israel in response to Jerusalem’s passing of the first piece of legislation from a legislative package aimed at overhauling the judiciary.

“There is not going to be any cut or stoppage of military aid, and that is because our commitment to Israel and our commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad. Our decades-long partnership with Israel is ironclad,” Patel says.

While Hebrew media has quickly begun playing up the comments, the prospect of the US conditioning aid to Israel was never on the table to begin with and US President Joe Biden campaigned on the notion that he would not consider such a step. US officials have repeatedly reiterated this stance since Israel’s general elections in November.

Patel adds that the refusal to cut US aid to Israel does not take away from the administration’s stance against the overhaul bill passed yesterday, as it did not have the broad support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly assured the US he would secure for such a fundamental change.