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U.S. Funding for Joint Missile Defense Programs Intact, Pro-Israel Groups Say

(Times of Israel) Rebecca Shimoni Stoil - Rebuffing reports that President Obama's budget for fiscal year 2015 gutted funding for the U.S.-Israel missile defense partnership, Jewish groups said Thursday that the onus was on Congress, not the president, to bring funding up to previous years' levels. The budget presented by the president for missile defense is slightly higher than numbers submitted by the White House last year for the same programs. In previous years, budgets have been further augmented by Congress allocating funding substantially above levels requested by the president. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said he hoped that Congress would "do again what it has done in the past" and add over $100 million to the presidential budget for the program. "While we recognize the budgetary pressures, it is especially important this year as the United States and Israel face a proliferation of long- and short-range missiles in the hands of terrorist organizations and rogue states," Hoenlein and Conference of Presidents Chairman Robert G. Sugarman said in a statement. "The seizure this week of a ship carrying the Iranian-supplied advanced missiles, destined for Gaza and Sinai terrorists, underscores the urgency and immediacy of expediting the development of missile defense systems."
2014-03-07 00:00:00
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