Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee heads to Washington
Members of the committee flew to Washington to discuss with their American contemporaries US-Israel relations and the US's backing of Israel in the ever-volatile Mideast.
By LAHAV HARKOVAvi Dichter(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee flew to Washington DC on Sunday to meet with their counterparts in the US.In addition to committee chairman Avi Dichter (Likud), the delegation includes MKs Ofer Shelah (Yesh Atid), Anat Berko (Likud), Eyal Ben-Reuven (Zionist Union), Yoav Kisch (Likud) and Elazar Stern (Yesh Atid). The group is scheduled to meet with the Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, Armed Services and Allocations committees in the Senate and House of Representatives.They are also scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump’s special Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt and representatives of the State Department and National Security Council. The trip will include the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s first official visit to the Pentagon.Planned topics of discussion include: American policies in the Middle East in coming years; how Israel is strengthened by American tools and capabilities; US policy vis-à-vis the Palestinian Authority and Gaza; cyber-security; and Iran, including Tehran’s terrorist proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza, its long-range missile capabilities and nuclear ambitions.The MKs will also participate in next week’s joint Knesset- Congress event honoring 50 years since Jerusalem’s reunification and will go to a Lockheed- Martin factory, where F-35 jets are manufactured.