Following the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s recent address to the Knesset, in which he pressed Israel to “get off the fence” and provide military support to Ukraine, the Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger took to Twitter to suggest that U.S. aid to Jerusalem be conditioned on how much help it offers Kyiv. Benny Avni comments:
Adam Kinzinger thinks he’s found the real bad guy in the Ukraine crisis. Is it Russia? President Putin? Could it be President Zelensky? Or Communist China? According to the congressman from Illinois, it’s—wait for it—Israel. [The day after his original statement], Kinzinger’s Twitter fingers were itching again in a thread that feigned a bold position, acting as a brave man swimming against the wrong-headed tide. “So I grabbed the third rail of foreign policy today,” . . . he wrote.
Explaining his threat to cut aid, Mr. Kinzinger drove home his argument: “If we don’t want to attack Russia directly, then our leverage is in the world uniting in sanctions and assistance for the people of Ukraine. This includes everyone, and Israel doesn’t have a special exemption.”
Yet does the “no exemption” rule apply to everyone? Does it even apply to America? And is the “world” really united? [On Monday] in Brussels the European Union failed to agree on imposing oil sanctions on Russia.
Mr. Kinzinger, who serves on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, might have missed a crucial request Mr. Zelensky made as he memorably addressed Congress last week. As in his Knesset speech, the Ukrainian leader challenged America to increase arms deliveries—a call so far rebuffed by President Biden and Congress. Further, Mr. Zelensky asked America to lead an imposition of a no-fly zone over Ukraine’s skies. That request was also quickly rebuffed by the White House and most members of Congress.
Read more on New York Sun: https://www.nysun.com/article/kinzinger-rounds-on-israel-over-its-policy-on-ukraine