Congress will weigh in on murder of Israeli youths
A look at the Middle East issues Congress will be addressing the week of July 7.
Congress is all but certain to respond to the murder of three Israeli teenagers when it returns from its weeklong July 4 recess next week.
Neither the House nor the Senate have yet passed their fiscal year 2015 spending bills for State and Foreign Operations, giving outraged lawmakers an ideal vehicle to place further restrictions on aid to the Palestinians. The chairman and top Democrat on the House panel on the Middle East and North Africa — Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., and Ted Deutch, D-Fla. — have demanded that the Palestinian Authority break up its unity government with Hamas if the group is found responsible.
“If it is determined that Hamas is behind this horrific tragedy, Abu Mazen [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] must immediately break up the unity agreement between Fatah and Hamas, a U.S. designated foreign terrorist organization,” the two lawmakers, who were on a congressional delegation to the region and attended the three teenagers’ funeral, said in a statement. Ros-Lehtinen also condemned the “revenge killing of Palestinian youth” in a tweet.
