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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's Republican senators have condemned a decision by the Biden administration to pause the shipment of some weapons to Israel as its troops are on the outskirts of the heavily populated city of Rafah.
The Biden administration announced the pause of 1,800, 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700, 500-pound bombs last week as President Joe Biden said the U.S. would stop sending offensive weapons if Israel advanced into Rafah, where many Palestinians displaced by earlier fighting in the more than six months of conflict have fled.
Although the shipment of bombs — with an estimated worth in the "tens of millions" of dollars, according to congressional aides — has been placed on hold, billions of dollars worth of weapons are still on track from the U.S.
Utah Sen. Mitt Romney issued a statement on social media after the pause was announced.
"We stand by allies, we don't second guess them," the senator said. "Biden's dithering on Israel weapons is bad policy and a terrible message to Israel, our allies, and the world."
The state's senior senator, Mike Lee, was forceful in his criticism of the policy over the weekend, telling Fox News the decision could have impacts for the president's reelection chances.
"This is just reprehensible," he said Sunday. "You're taking a group of people who have been victimized — remember that there were thousands of people killed, innocent people who were killed in Israel; men women, children, even babies, and they're the victims — now they're being revictimized by, of all people, the United States of America."
Lee was referring to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel, in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and hundreds taken hostage. Nearly 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials.
Lee said he opposed the recent tranche of wartime aid Congress passed for Ukraine and Israel because he was "concerned that the aid wouldn't actually make it to Israel."
"Well, lo and behold, a lot of it's not going to Israel, or at least it's being conditioned on Israel not being able to defend itself," he said. "This is inexcusable, and I really don't know how Joe Biden can survive this. I think this is yet another indication that it's time for change at the White House."
He called Biden's decision a "blunder," saying it "demonstrated to the American people and it demonstrates to people all over the world that we've got flawed, we've got inadequate, we've got ineffective, feckless leadership in the White House that has to come to an end. And that will happen, I believe, when Americans go to the polls this November."
Romney and Lee, both Republicans, have been staunchly defensive of U.S. support for Israel throughout its war with Hamas.
The White House on Friday said Israel's use of U.S. weapons in the war likely violated international humanitarian law, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday said the U.S. could withhold further military aid if Israel launches a "major military operation into Rafah," according to the New York Times.
