'False choice': WSJ editorial board debunks right-wing talking point

13 October 2023

After Hamas launched a deadly terrorist attack against Israel on Saturday, October 7, a new talking point emerged among MAGA Republicans: that all military aid to Ukraine should cease because of the Israel-Hamas War.

According to that argument, the Biden Administration's military aide to Ukraine needs to be used to fight terrorism in the Middle East instead.

But in an editorial published on October 12, the Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial board stresses that one doesn't rule out the other — that helping Israel militarily doesn't have to mean abandoning Ukraine during its war with Russian invaders.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

"President Biden hinted Tuesday that he may ask Congress for appropriations for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan," the WSJ board explains. "That makes military and political sense. The U.S. is confronting an authoritarian axis that is increasingly working together."

MAGA Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) has argued that because "Israel is facing" an "existential threat" from terrorists, "any funding for Ukraine should be redirected to Israel immediately."

But Hawley, the WSJ board argues, is offering a "false choice" by trying to "separate Israel from Ukraine."

GOP opponents of military aid to Ukraine, the board observes, "want a separate vote on aid to Ukraine and Israel so they don't offend the isolationist sentiment on the right that they have ginned up."

"The fantasy that the U.S. can abandon Europe and the Middle East to focus on China imploded on October 7," the WSJ editorial board writes. "The threats to the U.S. and its allies are growing worldwide, and Congress has an obligation to rearm to meet them."

Read the full Wall Street Journal editorial at this link (subscription required).

From Your Site Articles