Fifteen US Senators threatened to hold up the process of approving Biden administration nominees if the State Department does not reverse a guidance banning US funding for scientific and technological cooperation in east Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria or the Golan Heights.
In a letter spearheaded by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and signed by GOP presidential primary candidate Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) and Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, among others, the senators accused the Biden administration of an “antisemitic boycott of Israel.”The Trump administration decided in 2020 to remove territorial limitations in the Binational Science Foundation, Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation, and Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund agreements with Israel. All three had large endowments that provide grants to American and Israeli academics and companies for research and technology. The US and Israel signed a new science and technology agreement at the time.
Last month, the Biden administration decided that all US-Israel government-funded cooperation in those areas must take place in pre-1967 Israel, which has been the more typical position in recent decades.“Without a reversal in these trends, Congressional oversight and the expeditious vetting of nominees would become intractable,” the senators wrote.
“The new guidance as written constitutes an antisemitic boycott of Israel,” they said, adding that “the State Department’s own Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism was excluded from deliberations over this guidance and did not clear it.”
According to the senators, “the American people and Congress broadly and deeply oppose boycott efforts against Israel, which have been repeatedly defined in US law as efforts to limit commerce with persons doing business in any territories controlled by Israel… This guidance in particular puts Americans’ safety, security, and prosperity at risk because it politicizes and undermines cooperation on science and technology, including in areas such as defense and medicine where also our Israeli allies have proven themselves critical partners.”
State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller said on Wednesday that the guidance is "simply reflective of the longstanding us position...We are just reverting US policy to where it was before 2020. I don't recall nominees of previous administrations. including Republican administrations, being held up over this policy."
"There are a number of our nominees on the floor right now waiting for votes...to posts that are essential to our national security, so we certainly hope the senators will not move to put holds on those nominees...unrelated to their qualifications their service or the jobs to which they are nominated," he added.
State Department denies guidance was result of new Israeli settlements
The State Department also denied that the timing of the new guidance was punitive, following Israel’s advancement of more settlement construction, saying it was “simply reflective of the longstanding US position.”Cruz last month that US President “Joe Biden and Biden administration officials [were] pathologically obsessed with undermining Israel. Since day one of their administration, they have launched campaigns against our Israeli allies... This new boycott of Israeli Jews is yet another example... The Biden administration defends funding scientific research in Wuhan with the Chinese Communist Party, but they’re discriminating against and banning cooperation with Jews based on where they live.”
"Since day one of their administration, [the Biden Administration] has launched campaigns against our Israeli allies."
Senator Ted Cruz
Israel has repeatedly entered into scientific and technological cooperation agreements that include territorial limitations with the EU, the most recent version of which is called Horizon Europe.