Michigan Senator Gary Peters wants to provide Israel with an additional $30 million to strengthen U.S.-Israel Anti-tunneling efforts

Last week, Senator Gary Peters introduced bipartisan legislation – the United States-Israel Anti-Tunnel Cooperation Act – with U.S. Senator Ted Budd (R-NC) to strengthen anti-tunneling activity in the Gaza strip. 

According to a recent Press Release:

The legislation authorizes a $30 million increase in funding to expand Department of Defense (DoD) efforts, in collaboration with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), to detect, maneuver through, and destroy tunnels constructed by Hamas and other terrorist organizations under the Strip and near the Israeli border. As part of the DoD’s collaboration with the IDF, Israel shares its counter-tunnel technology with the DoD and Department of Homeland Security to combat growing threats at our borders, as well as similar threats faced on the Korean Peninsula and in multiple locations in the Middle East. 

Ok, so let me get this straight. Senator Gary Peters has voted every year he has been a US Senator to provide over $3 billion in US military aid to Israel, plus he voted for the additional $15 billion in “supplemental aid.” Peters, as a member of the Senator Armed Forces Committee, loves using public taxpayer funds to underwrite the arms industry, whether its domestic or foreign. 

Here’s an idea Senator Peters. How about you, Stabenow, Rep. Scholten and the rest of the Democratic Party stop sending more military aid to Israel, call for an immediate ceasefire, end any and all future aid to Israel on the condition that they stop brutalizing Palestinians, that the Israel government stop building settlements on Palestinian lands, that the Israeli government call for an immediate end to their military occupation of Palestine and pay massive reparations for all the harm that has been done to Palestinians since 1948, when Israeli murdered countless Palestinians and displaced some 900,000 from their lands in order to create the State of Israel. 

Now, of course the main Israeli lobby group AIPAC loves the idea from Sen. Peters, based on a recent Press Release of their own. Not surprising that Senator Peters has received $626,444 from Pro-Israel groups since he first ran for a Senate seat in Michigan, according to OpenSecrets.  Republican Senator Ted Budd, who co-sponsored this legislation with Gary Peters, has received a much smaller amount in campaign contributions from Pro-Israel groups ($159,035), but then again Budd only became a Senator in 2023, so his proposed legislation will no doubt pay off big dividends from Pro-Israel groups down the road. 

Lastly, does Senator Peters really believe that providing $30 million additional funds in US military aid to detect and destroy tunnels is a solution that will reduce any animosity that Palestinians might have towards the US? Instead of coming up with new ways to get people from other countries to despise the US, how about putting an end to this shit. Of course Senator Peters won’t, since he, like virtually all members of the US government, are deeply committed to US hegemony and US imperialism.