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The White House and its allies launched a full-court press to get a supplemental aid package, which included $60 billion for Ukraine, over the finish line this week. Despite this, their effort failed Wednesday night, leaving the fate of funding up in the air.Earlier on Wednesday, President Joe Biden delivered surprise remarks ahead of the vote, warning that lapsed funding for Kyiv would have dire consequences for Europe and the world. "If Putin takes Ukraine, he won't stop there. It's important to see the long run here. He's going to keep going. He's made that pretty clear," Biden said. "If Putin attacks a NATO Ally — if he keeps going and then he attacks a NATO Ally — well, we've committed as a NATO member that we'd defend every inch of NATO territory. Then we'll have something that we don't seek and that we don't have today: American troops fighting Russian troops." This came in the wake of a letter sent to congressional leadership by Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, saying that the U.S. is "out of money to support Ukraine in this fight," and urging them to pass the supplemental before the end of the year."Cutting off the flow of U.S. weapons and equipment will kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield," the letter warned. But after the Senate vote failed 49-51 on Wednesday the possibility that 2023 comes to an end without Congress passing another tranche of aid for Ukraine appears increasingly likely.On Thursday, Bloomberg's Erik Wasson reported on X that lawmakers believe that there is "no way" the House will pass aid this calendar year, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) committed to the House leaving by December 15. While the timeframe for current aid to dry up and the risk of Vladimir Putin expanding the war into Europe may be overstated, the sudden elimination of funding could be problematic nonetheless. As George Beebe of the Quincy Institute cautioned earlier this year, cutting off funding without warning would spell "bad news not only for those insisting on an unconditional Ukrainian victory, but also for those pressing for a diplomatic settlement of the conflict." "Avoiding such sobering possibilities will require compromise," Beebe continued. "The White House will have to compromise with domestic opponents of aid by making clear — at least behind closed doors — its plans for marrying military aid to a viable exit strategy. Opponents of aid will have to compromise with proponents to ensure that Ukraine does not collapse altogether, with all the attendant implications for the West and the world." Despite these dynamics, the Biden administration appears unwilling to shift its strategy and its rhetoric. In a phone call with Reuters this week, national security adviser Jake Sullivan reiterated Washington's position that it would not pressure Kyiv to enter negotiations with Moscow. "That's going to have to be up to them," Sullivan said. "We're just going to keep fighting day in and day out to try to secure this money." In other diplomatic news related to the war in Ukraine:—The Washington Post published a detailed analysis on why Ukraine's recent counteroffensive did not produce the desired results, highlighting, among other critical points, the gap in expectations between Washington and Kyiv."U.S. and Ukrainian officials sharply disagreed at times over strategy, tactics and timing. The Pentagon wanted the assault to begin in mid-April to prevent Russia from continuing to strengthen its lines. The Ukrainians hesitated, insisting they weren't ready without additional weapons and training," reports the Post. "As the expected launch of the offensive approached, Ukrainian military officials feared they would suffer catastrophic losses — while American officials believed the toll would ultimately be higher without a decisive assault."— Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare overseas trip this week, visiting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The purpose of the trip was to discuss global oil markets and the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. The visit was partly intended to get arms and win over allies for his war effort, and possibly to "drive a wedge" between the Gulf States and the U.S., according to the Wall Street Journal.— Top Ukrainian officials came to Washington this week in an effort to bolster Kyiv's weapon making capabilities. The Ukrainian delegation, which was led by President Zelensky's adviser Andriy Yermak and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, met with a number of high-ranking U.S. officials including Jake Sullivan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. The Ukrainians also met with lawmakers once the fight over aid took center stage on Capitol Hill. "Initially envisioned as a way for the Ukrainians to forge new contacts and commitments with the U.S. defense industry to bolster Kyiv's ability to build its own weapons, the meetings have taken on a deeper importance as the Biden administration pressures Congress to pass a $60 billion aid package, and as questions swirl over next steps in the war," reported Politico on Tuesday.Zelensky was also scheduled to address the U.S. Senate virtually on Tuesday, but he abruptly canceled his remarks shortly before the meeting. The meeting proceeded and eventually descended into chaos, according to multiple reports. "A classified briefing with administration officials called to shore up support devolved into a partisan screaming match on Tuesday afternoon, with Republicans angrily accusing Democrats of trying to steamroller over their demands for a border crackdown," reported the New York Times.U.S. State Department news:— In a Wednesday press briefing, State Department spokesman Matt Miller reacted to that Senate meeting, at which Secretary of State Antony Blinken was present. "I think the Secretary found it to be a frank and candid exchange of views on the Hill, mostly between members of the Senate, not involving the administration," Miller said. "But as we made clear in the statement we issued today about the drawdown package, we have nearly exhausted the available security assistance that is available to Ukraine. It is urgent that Congress act to support Ukraine; it is urgent that Congress act to support democracy."

UPDATE 12/6/23, 5:30 p.m. : The Senate fails to approve the supplemental package by a vote of 49-51.President Joe Biden implored the Senate to vote in favor of his proposed supplemental package, saying that "history is going to judge harshly those who turn their back on freedom's cause," during remarks delivered in advance of an expected vote on the legislation later on Wednesday.The $106 billion spending bill includes funds for Israel and the Asia-Pacific, but Biden's nine-minute speech was almost entirely dedicated to the imperative of supporting Ukraine in their war effort. The supplemental contains approximately $61 billion in aid for Kyiv. "Congress needs to pass supplemental funding for Ukraine before they break for the holiday recess," Biden said. "It's as simple as that." His administration earlier this week urged Congressional leaders to pass this bill, telling them that the Pentagon was close to exhausting all of the funds that had been allocated to Kyiv. Biden spent much of his remarks criticizing members of the Republican Party who have soured on giving more aid to Ukraine, and who have insisted that Democrats acquiesce to their demands on border security policy in exchange for their support for the supplemental. "Extreme Republicans are playing chicken with our national security, holding Ukraine's funding hostage to their extreme partisan border policies," the president said, calling the cessation of U.S. support "the greatest gift [Russian President Vladimir Putin] could hope for." But Biden did not address many of the concerns that Republicans have raised about continuing aid to Ukraine, concerns that were reiterated in a statement that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) made earlier this week, which read, in part: "The Biden administration has failed to substantively address any of my conference's legitimate concerns about the lack of a clear strategy in Ukraine, a path to resolving the conflict, or a plan for adequately ensuring accountability for aid provided by American taxpayers.""Part of winning approval from Congressional doubters on Ukraine is to present a viable strategy for ending the war that amounts to more than Biden's vague 'as long as it takes' approach. Biden has not done that," George Beebe, director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute tells RS. "He is not proposing any shift in America's strategy to account for the failure of Ukraine's counteroffensive to break through Russian defenses. Ukraine is simply not going to be able to drive all Russian forces off all Ukrainian land."Biden nonetheless appears determined to stay the course, saying that he is "not prepared to walk away."In Biden's telling, the failure to arm Ukraine would allow Putin to continue to march through Europe — raising the risk of direct confrontation between Washington and Moscow — while also emboldening other would-be aggressors elsewhere. "The entire world is watching," Biden said. Beebe, who has made the case for a shift to a "defensive strategy" for Ukraine, says that the administration's current approach is not sustainable, noting that both Ukraine's reserves of manpower and political patience in Washington and European capitals are dwindling. "We must couple this defensive strategy to a diplomatic offensive aimed at bringing about a stable armistice, because Ukraine is unlikely to weather a long war of attrition with much more populous and militarily capable Russia," Beebe tells RS. "Biden, however, appears to be ruling out any diplomatic compromise, insisting that Putin and Russia must be held accountable for their crimes. Biden's stay-the-course approach is a formula for failure." The Senate is slated to vote on the supplemental package on Wednesday, but the bill is expected to fail, given the lack of progress on border security negotiations. Dear RS readers: It has been an extraordinary year and our editing team has been working overtime to make sure that we are covering the current conflicts with quality, fresh analysis that doesn't cleave to the mainstream orthodoxy or take official Washington and the commentariat at face value. Our staff reporters, experts, and outside writers offer top-notch, independent work, daily. Please consider making a tax-exempt, year-end contribution to Responsible Statecraft so that we can continue this quality coverage — which you will find nowhere else — into 2024. Happy Holidays!

The Biden administration issued a stark warning to House and Senate leaders on Monday, telling them that U.S. aid for Kyiv would run out by the end of 2023 if Congress does not pass the White House's proposed emergency supplemental package, which includes about $61 billion for Ukraine."We are out of money to support Ukraine in this fight. This isn't a next year problem," concludes a letter sent by Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget. "The time to help a democratic Ukraine fight against Russian aggression is right now. It is time for Congress to act."Aid for Ukraine has been hanging in the balance since Republicans took control of the House in January of this year, with assistance for Kyiv being left out of two short-term government funding packages. Despite the urgent tone in the OMB's letter, it isn't quite clear how much money is left in the coffers for Ukraine. As RS's Connor Echols reported in October even the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee admitted at the time that he did not have "100% clarity" on what remained. Nevertheless, Young's letter claims that the Department of Defense has spent 97% of the funds it has received from Congress to date, and that the State Department has exhausted the $4.7 billion it has received for military assistance. Young argues that the remaining funds are rapidly running out. "Cutting off the flow of U.S. weapons and equipment will kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield, not only putting at risk the gains Ukraine has made, but increasing the likelihood of Russian military victories," reads the letter. "If our assistance stops, it will cause significant issues for Ukraine. While our allies around the world have stepped up to do more, U.S. support is critical and cannot be replicated by others." The OMB director also doubled down on the Biden administration's recent pivot that funding Ukraine's defense is also a boon to American jobs. "While we cannot predict exactly which U.S companies will be awarded new contracts, we do know the funding will be used to acquire advanced capabilities to defend against attacks on civilians in Israel and Ukraine — for example, air defense systems built in Alabama, Texas, and Georgia and vital subcomponents sourced from nearly all 50 states," Young wrote. As the Quincy Institute's Bill Hartung recently wrote in RS, foreign military aid is not an effective jobs program. "There are many ways to create more and better jobs without resorting to increased weapons spending," said Hartung. "Virtually any other form of government outlay, or even a tax cut, yields greater employment than military spending."Despite the Biden administration's urgent plea, a series of obstacles stand in the way of the supplemental appropriations making their way to the president's desk. In the Senate — which has overwhelmingly supported Ukraine aid so far — negotiations over the spending package are reportedly held up by disagreements over border security, which Senate Republicans maintain must be included in the final language. Politico's Burgess Everett reported on Monday that talks have "moved in the wrong direction" in the last week, with some Democrats saying talks have fallen apart. Even if the Senate manages to reach a compromise, the path promises to be more complicated in the House, where a growing number of Republicans are skeptical of how money is being spent and whether the Biden administration has a strategy for bringing the war to an end. A number of House Republicans have pledged to oppose what they consider another "blank check" for Kyiv.Like his predecessor Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), new House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has sent mixed messages on his stance. As a rank-and-file member, Johnson consistently voted against further funding for Ukraine, but his rhetoric since assuming the Speakership suggests a change in opinion.In late November, he said that he was "confident and optimistic" that Congress would be able to get a package that includes aid for Ukraine and Israel as well as funding for border security "over the line" before the end of the calendar year. "Of course, we can't allow Vladimir Putin to march through Europe, and we understand the necessity of assisting there," he added at an event in Sarasota, Florida. "What we've said is that if there is to be additional assistance to Ukraine, which most members of Congress believe is important, we have to also work in changing our own border policy."But Johnson also reportedly recently warned Senators that he does not have the votes in the House to pass Biden's supplemental package. More than 100 House Republicans voted against the last Ukraine aid package, and counting on Democratic votes to pass controversial legislation could have political consequences for the Speaker.Despite these hurdles, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) maintains that he wants to bring the package to the floor this week. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) has said he would filibuster the legislation if no border deal is reached.

As the U.S. Congress gears up to vote on a supplemental spending package that includes $14.3 billion in aid for Israel, Democrats on the Hill have started questioning the long-standing bipartisan consensus in Washington to supply military aid to Tel Aviv with very few strings attached.
President Joe Biden and a large majority of Congress have thus far expressed full support for Israel's military response to Hamas's October 7 attack, but a short-term pause in the fighting has given some Democrats time to air concerns about how Israel is waging its war. Nearly a dozen senators met with Israeli officials in Washington on Monday to have what Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) called an "extremely frank" discussion about how the war is unfolding.
Democratic senators have remained tight-lipped about whether they support placing conditions on aid to Israel or how they will vote on the upcoming spending package, instead conveying general discomfort with Israel's conduct during a war in which it has killed more than 15,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to the government media office in Gaza. Senators have also expressed concern about escalating settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
"We want the president to secure express assurances from the Netanyahu government regarding a plan to reduce the unacceptable level of civilian casualties, and we want the Netanyahu coalition to commit to full cooperation with our efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). "The bottom line is we need those express assurances. How we achieve that is something that we are discussing right now."
"I fully support Israel's right to pursue those who ordered and carried out the attacks of October 7th. But Israel must not do so in a way that leads to massive civilian casualties and the large-scale destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza," added Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) in a statement. "This will only incite more enemies against Israel and the U.S."
This growing discussion serves as more evidence that Washington's support for Israel's war is causing a split among Democrats in Congress. While Biden has helped broker a short-term pause to hostilities that is set to expire this week, other Democrats have demanded that the U.S. push for a more long-term ceasefire. In the nearly two months since the October 7 attacks, the number of Democrats who publicly support a ceasefire has slowly grown to 49 as of Wednesday. Public opinion polling has shown that a strong majority of Americans support a ceasefire in Gaza."Achieving a lasting ceasefire remains the most urgent priority for all sensible advocates and policymakers," Erik Sperling, the executive director of Just Foreign Policy, tells RS. "But as efforts to secure a ceasefire continue, it is encouraging to see growing talk about conditioning aid to Israel, which was once unimaginable on Capitol Hill."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has been criticized by progressive advocates for stopping short of calling for a ceasefire, has been one of the few Senate Democrats to explicitly endorse making military aid subject to more conditions on the way it is used. "Currently, we provide $3.8 billion a year. President Biden has asked for $14.3 billion more on top of that sum and asked Congress to waive normal, already-limited oversight rules. The blank check approach must end," Sanders wrote in a New York Times op-ed last week. "The United States must make clear that while we are friends of Israel, there are conditions to that friendship and that we cannot be complicit in actions that violate international law and our own sense of decency."
Other Democrats have pushed back on this idea. "Any legislation that conditions security aid to our key democratic ally, Israel, is a nonstarter and will lose scores of votes," Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) said in a statement.
"I don't think there's a need for conditionality," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin (D-Md.) added on Monday. "The way the president has handled his conversations with the Israelis has produced tangible results, including the amount of humanitarian assistance and the strategy on the military side."
Amid these debates, U.S. Senators were shown a film produced by the Israeli government showing footage of the Hamas attacks in October. The images left Senators in "tears and silence," according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Biden has called the idea of conditioning aid a "worthwhile thought," but administration officials has since said that it was "not something we're currently pursuing," according to Politico.
The Intercept reported on Tuesday that Sanders could force a vote on conditioning aid in the coming weeks.
Conversations in the Democratic caucus revolve around the Leahy law, which prohibits the U.S. from providing military aid to specific units where there is credible information that they have committed gross violations of human rights. As Josh Paul, a veteran State Department official who resigned in protest of the administration's approach to the war, explained to RS last month, Israel is held to different standards than other countries when it comes to the application of the law.
"For most countries, we vet the units that are receiving the systems before they receive the assistance," Paul said. "In the context of Israel, we provide the assistance, and then if certain allegations come to light of potential gross violations of human rights, we investigate those and decide if such things have actually happened."
What these discussions in the Democratic conference mean for U.S. policy in the short-term remain unclear, especially as most in Congress continue to strongly support aid for Israel, but as the war likely continues, it will be a question that lawmakers may not be able to avoid.
"Irreversible trends in how voters see Israel's brutal actions means this focus will only increase going forward," says Sperling. "In light of Israel's unprecedented toll on human life and also on U.S. global credibility, ending U.S. complicity in these cruel and illegal Israeli policies can't come soon enough."
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, has said that the Senate will vote on the administration's emergency supplemental request as soon as next week, but a possible attempt to condition support for Israel only adds another roadblock to a sprawling bill that will likely also spark debates over future aid for Ukraine and border security policies.

Two interviews with national security adviser Jake Sullivan this week revealed the Biden administration's continued hesitance to pressure Ukraine to open peace talks with Russia, while maintaining that it expects the war will eventually end at the negotiating table and acknowledging that Washington's ability to support Kyiv's war effort is being hamstrung by Congress's inability to approve a new tranche of aid.
During an interview with Julia Ioffe of Puck News, Sullivan quickly dismissed last week's NBC News report that asserted "U.S. and European officials have begun quietly talking to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war," citing one current and one former senior U.S. official.
When asked about the assessment — including from a top Ukrainian commander —that the war has reached a stalemate, Sullivan elaborated:
"There's been a robust debate in Ukraine based on the general's interview. I don't want to get into the middle of all that. I'll just give you our perspective, which is that we believe the battlefield remains dynamic, and we are going to continue to support Ukraine with the tools and resources and capabilities that it needs to continue to try to make progress on the battlefield. We do believe that, ultimately, when Ukraine determines it—because we feel passionately about the article of faith, 'Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine'—there will be a diplomatic phase to this. And our job is to put Ukraine in the best possible position on the battlefield so it's in the best possible position at the negotiating table."
But separate remarks from Sullivan earlier in the week suggest that Washington is struggling to fulfill what the national security adviser considers its responsibility in this war.
"Each week that passes, our ability to fully fund what we feel is necessary to give Ukraine the tools and capacities it needs to both defend its territory and continue to make advances, that gets harder and harder," Sullivan said during a press briefing on Monday. "So, for us, the window is closing."
President Joe Biden has requested that Congress approve a $104 billion emergency defense supplemental which purports to tackle a number of policy priorities, including $60 billion in aid for Ukraine. But the proposal so far remains in limbo in the Republican led-House, with new leadership instead opting to pass a short-term government funding measure that did not include any money for Ukraine.
Supporters of Ukraine aid still hope that another package will make its way through Congress eventually, but that will not happen until lawmakers return from their Thanksgiving recess, at the earliest.
The lack of funding "is already having an effect on our ability to give Ukraine everything that it needs," according to Sullivan, "and that effect will only compound over time."
In other diplomatic news related to the war in Ukraine:
— Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba dismissed those calling for talks with Moscow, pointing to 30 years of "negotiations with Russia that it never respected," including the Black Sea Grain Initiative from which Russia unilaterally withdrew earlier this year. "There are no conclusions to be drawn here, except that no one can seriously use the words 'Russia' and 'negotiations' in the same phrase," Kuleba wrote on the social media platform X. "Russia's tactic has remained consistent in its many wars over the last three decades: kill, grab, lie, and deny."
— Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that the European Union should not move forward on Ukraine membership talks. "Ukraine is in no way ready to negotiate on its ambitions to join the European Union," Orban said on Monday. "The clear Hungarian position is that the negotiations must not begin." EU leaders are preparing to vote next month on whether Kyiv should be invited, and all 27 member nations must agree in order to admit a new country. Slovakia, whose new government recently rejected an aid package for Kyiv, is also expected to be a potential obstacle to Ukraine's admittance.
— President Joe Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday in San Francisco, on the sidelines of the APEC summit. While the discussion mostly focused on other aspects of the bilateral relationship, reports say that Biden reaffirmed U.S. support for Kyiv and "also pressed Xi to continue to withhold military support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine," according to the Associated Press. A CNN report from before the meeting said that "US officials believe there might be a limited role Beijing can play in the Ukraine war, notwithstanding China's deep economic alliance with Russia."
U.S. State Department news:
During a Tuesday press briefing, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller expressed concern over Congress's inability to move forward with the White House's supplemental request.
"So we are at a critical point with respect to aid to Ukraine. The Pentagon has said publicly that they have exhausted somewhere around 95 percent of their funds to provide security assistance to Ukraine – security assistance that's very important," Miller said.

Aid for Ukraine and Israel — a policy priority for the White House for the last month — remains in limbo after the House of Representatives passed a short-term measure that would keep the government funded into next year.
The Biden administration, with support from Senate leadership, has urged Congress to pass an $106 billion emergency supplemental that includes money for Kyiv and Tel Aviv as they continue their respective war efforts, as well as funding for border security and the Indo-Pacific.
Instead, recently installed Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), decided to pursue a two-step continuing resolution (CR) that will maintain current funding levels, with certain government agencies funded until January 19 and the rest of the government until February 2.
As recently as Saturday, the White House called the proposal "unserious," but eventually reversed course and told House Democrats that Biden would support the legislation. The bill eventually passed overwhelmingly, 336-95, with 209 Democrats and 127 Republicans voting in favor. Only two Democrats and 93 Republicans opposed the measure.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, explained during Politico's defense summit earlier on Tuesday that keeping the government afloat had to take precedence over more potentially controversial issues.
"The first priority is to get the CR," Reed said. "The second priority is to get funding for Israel and Ukraine … we have to do both." It appears as if the White House and Democrats in the House eventually reached the same conclusion.
But it is unclear exactly how the second part of that plan would be accomplished. The House GOP earlier this month passed a bill that would have provided Israel with $14.3 billion, though it offset that spending by cutting funds for the Internal Revenue Service. Both the Senate majority and the White House have called that legislation a nonstarter.
On Ukraine, the terrain is even more tricky. "[C]ongressional interest in financing its fight against invading Russian forces has dipped lower than ever, and rising competition from other national security priorities — including Israel and the U.S. southern border — could sound the death knell for continued American aid for its embattled European ally," explained the Washington Post on Tuesday.
The hesitance for continued aid has thus far come from Republicans in Congress, who argue that there are other more important priorities and that the Biden administration has not produced a strategy for how the war in Ukraine ends. A small but growing and increasingly loud minority of GOP members have held up funding for Kyiv, threatening to shutdown the federal government in September and later removing Speaker Kevin McCarthy from power in part because of their opposition to more aid.
"The growing prospect that Congress, amid this chaotic landscape, will simply not approve additional aid for Ukraine could have major geopolitical ramifications, undermining one of Biden's central foreign policy objectives," the Post story continues. "Republican lawmakers' appetite for further helping Ukraine has been declining for many months, however, even before the nation's much-anticipated summer offensive failed to produce any dramatic breakthroughs, as polling has showed a steady descent in the American public's once robust support."
Johnson's own views on funding Kyiv are not obvious, as his rhetoric since assuming the Speakership mildly contradicts his consistent anti-aid voting record. He — like other Republicans — has said that there needs to be more clarity from the White House and more accountability for the money — but ultimately, he said last month, "we're not gonna abandon them." However, media reports since then say that it is "widely expected" that Johnson would not move to bring Ukraine aid legislation to the floor.
Other participants at the Politico Defense Summit on Tuesday, all of whom were supporters of approving another tranche, seemed cautiously optimistic that Kyiv would receive more aid once the government funding debate was settled.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) the ranking member of the House armed services committee predicted that if a standalone bill to supply Ukraine with more was brought to the floor, it would receive "300 votes, easy."
"The problem isn't getting the votes," Smith said. "The problem is getting the Republicans to negotiate their politics so that they give us a vote to support Ukraine."
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) said that the future of Washington's support for Kyiv would be the "bellwether" for the status of American global leadership. "Will we ultimately deliver a package of aid to Ukraine?" asked Himes. "I think so."
The Biden administration has stressed the importance of providing more support to Kyiv promptly, arguing that the war is at a crossroads.
The Senate, which has been more supportive of the White House's proposal than the House, is expected to pass a version of Biden's supplemental sometime soon. Leadership from both parties is reportedly hammering out the details and the Senate version likely won't come to floor until lawmakers return from Thanksgiving recess.
"We have Democrats and Republicans working together to try to come up with a border security package that will have bipartisan support," Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday. "But we have to get this done, and as soon as we come back in Thanksgiving, it will be a very high priority, get all four of them done, all four have bipartisan support in the House. Together."

More than two-thirds of Americans support a ceasefire in Israel's war on Gaza, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll whose results were released on Wednesday.
The poll, which gathered responses from just over 1,000 respondents earlier this week, also shows that U.S. support for Israel has declined in the month since Hamas's incursion into Israel on October 7. The percentage of respondents who said that "the U.S. should support Israel" when asked what role Washington should play in the war dropped from 41% in mid-October to 32% percent this week.
Meanwhile, respondents who said that the U.S. should support Palestine increased from 2% to 4%, those who said it should play no role decreased from 21% to 15%, and those who urged Washington to be a "neutral mediator" jumped from 27% to 39%.
The ceasefire question was not included in the poll taken in the immediate aftermath of Hamas's attacks, but it has become a hot-button political issue amid Israel's ongoing, brutal retaliatory war. As of Monday, an estimated 11,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7. According to Gaza's Ministry of Health, 40% of those have been children.
"The Gaza crisis has sparked an international outcry that has focused in recent days on the collapsing medical infrastructure in the crowded coastal enclave," reads the Reuters report that announced the polling results. "Palestinians trapped inside Gaza's biggest hospital were digging a mass grave on Tuesday to bury patients who died under Israeli encirclement."
The 68% of respondents who agreed with the statement, "Israel should call a ceasefire and try to negotiate," were divided by political party, with approximately 75% of Democrats and about half of Republicans concurring.
The overwhelming support from Democratic respondents puts them squarely at odds with the party's political leadership in Washington. President Joe Biden said last week that there was "no possibility" of a ceasefire in Gaza, and only 27 congressional Democrats (about 10% of the conference) have publicly supported one. The split between the public and elected officials is also notable in the GOP, where no elected officials on Capitol Hill have called for a ceasefire.
"Support for Israel's war in Gaza is fast eroding among Americans," wrote Trita Parsi, executive vice President of the Quincy Institute, on the social media platform X. "Biden & Congress are once again out of step with the American public."
The poll also showed that 31% of respondents support sending weapons to Israel, compared to 43% who were opposed, in what Reuters called "a potentially worrisome sign for Israel." Providing military support to Israel has long had strong bipartisan support in Washington, and Biden has recently called for an additional $14.3 billion in aid for Tel Aviv, as part of a larger supplemental package that has yet to make its way through Congress.

Amid shifting battlefield and political dynamics in Kyiv and Washington, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) accused the State Department of resembling a "department of war" more than a "department of diplomacy" in its approach to the conflict in Ukraine during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday. "Do you really believe that Ukraine is going to push Russia out of Ukraine? They're gonna push them out of Crimea and (...) that Zelensky's position that 'we will not negotiate until they're gone from Ukraine' is viable?" Paul asked during a testy exchange with James O'Brien, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. "You would think that as a superpower, we would be involved somewhat with encouraging negotiation, but I've heard nothing from you, and nothing from anyone in your administration, frankly, that talks about negotiating." "There are actually some who say we're back to about where we started as far as negotiating and tens of thousands of people died on both sides and we haven't been successful," Paul added. "But I still hear only war and I don't hear diplomacy." In his response, O'Brien acknowledged that the war would end at the negotiating table once Ukraine is prepared to, and added that at this time, Moscow is not a viable negotiating partner. O'Brien noted that he had recently spent a weekend with representatives from 66 other countries to discuss what peace should look like."Russia didn't show up," O'Brien said, though reports say that Russia has not been invited to any of three three successive meetings aimed at shoring up support for Ukraine's vision of a peace plan, including the one held in Malta late last month. "Putin is not serious about negotiating the end of the war. He has said he wants to wait and see what happens in November '24," O'Brien said. "So we're preparing for that eventuality. So we can have a negotiation that will actually stick as opposed to the track record of broken agreements that President Putin has made with a whole range of his neighbors up until now.""This is the wrong time to walk away because Ukraine's winning," added O'Brien later in the hearing. "It's already taken back half the territory Putin's seized since February 22. It's opened up the Black Sea grain lanes that Putin tried to shut down in July." "I haven't seen any evidence that the Biden administration is willing to entertain negotiations to end the slaughter in Ukraine," Paul told RS after the hearing. "Based on O'Brien's response today, the Biden administration seems to only be interested in war not diplomacy."Most other Senators on the committee agreed that the war is at a crucial turning point but interpreted the precarious situation on the ground as a signal that Western military support was more important than ever. To make the case for continued aid, much of the focus was on the imperative of passing the White House's proposed emergency supplemental spending package, emphasizing the links between Russia, China, Iran, and Hamas, and therefore the importance of passing legislation that would combat them all. "By degrading Russia's military capabilities, we're also degrading the capabilities of those who Russia works with, like Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah," said committee Chairman Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) during his opening statement. "We see these actors in concert not in isolation, which is why we need to consider the whole supplemental package." There was little mention of a recent acknowledgement from Ukraine's top commander that his forces were locked in a "stalemate" with Russia on the battlefield and subsequent reports that Washington and Europe are quietly discussing the possibility of negotiations with Kyiv. Outside of Sen. Paul's back-and-forth with O'Brien, there was little discussion of an endgame. One exception came from Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho), the ranking member on the committee, who bemoaned the Biden administration's lack of urgency with providing the necessary weapons to Ukraine. "This thing can't go over forever," Risch said in his closing remarks. "You've got to escalate. If you don't escalate, you're gonna lose. ...[The administration] still needs to do more on ATACMs and I want to see the F-16s. Give it to them and let them get this thing over with so we can move on."

The House of Representatives passed one of its first pieces of legislation under Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Thursday, approving a bill that provides $14.3 billion in aid for Israel, money that is offset by cuts to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The measure passed by a vote of 226-196 with twelve Democrats voting for the bill and two Republicans voting against.
Johnson had gone against the wishes of the White House and Senate leadership by separating aid for Israel from a massive spending bill that would have included a number of other policy priorities, notably another tranche of aid to Ukraine.
The new House Speaker made the bill anathema to Democrats by including the cuts to IRS funding that were part of Joe Biden's 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Democratic House Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) said the proposal "presents a false choice between funds meant to ensure that wealthy tax cheats and corporations pay their fair share and funds to help our ally Israel defend itself."
Despite opposition from leadership, Reps. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), Don Davis (D-N.C), Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), Jared Golden (D-Maine), Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Greg Landsman (D-Ohio), Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), Darren Soto (D-Fla.), Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), Juan Vargas (D-Calif.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), and Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) all voted in favor of the measure.
Some of those who voted aye nonetheless criticized the GOP's approach. "While I condemn House leaders for unprecedentedly tying conditional funds to security assistance, we must continue to stand together with our ally, Israel," Davis said on the social media platform X.
The two Republicans who voted against the party were Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). Both had earlier signaled their opposition to additional aid for Israel.
"This week the House will vote on $14.5 billion foreign aid package for Israel, in addition to the $3.8 billion that already passed. I will be a NO vote," said Massie (R-Ky.) on Sunday. "Less than 1/3 of the 49,000 people who responded to my poll today support this additional funding. We simply can't afford it."
"I will be voting NO on all funding packages for the Ukraine war (as I have from the beginning) and now the Israel war," added Greene.
After the vote, Johnson urged the Senate and White House to follow the House's lead and move swiftly, saying that they "cannot let this moment pass." The legislation, however, appears to be dead on arrival in the upper chamber.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has already indicated that he will not allow the bill to be voted on by the Senate, calling it "stunningly unserious" and adding "[i]t's not going anywhere. As I said, it's dead almost before it's born."
Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has not commented on the particulars of the legislation passed on Thursday, but he has been a staunch backer of Ukraine aid and has expressed support for Biden's spending package. "I know there are some Republicans in the Senate, and maybe more in the House, saying Ukraine is somehow different [than Israel]. I view it as all interconnected," he said last month. On Wednesday, he added, "At the risk of repeating myself: The threats facing America and our allies are serious, and they're intertwined." The White House has also pledged to veto the legislation if it were to ever reach the president's desk.

Ukraine's top commander acknowledged that his army is currently locked in a "stalemate" with Russia that seems unlikely to break any time soon."Just like in the First World War we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate," Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, told The Economist. "There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough." This is the starkest acknowledgement to date from the Ukrainian military that its counteroffensive has stalled, and, comes "amid a wider effort by Ukrainian officials to temper allies' expectations of rapid battlefield success, while urging them to maintain military support to allow Ukraine to gain the advantage on the battlefield," according to the New York Times. But despite the realities of grinding war and sapping international attention and support, discussion of a negotiated settlement with Russia is still "taboo" in Kyiv, according to a new profile of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky."Zelensky's stubbornness, some of his aides say, has hurt their team's efforts to come up with a new strategy, a new message. As they have debated the future of the war, one issue has remained taboo: the possibility of negotiating a peace deal with the Russians," writes Simon Shuster in TIME magazine. "Zelensky remains dead set against even a temporary truce. 'For us it would mean leaving this wound open for future generations,' the President tells me."Shuster reports from Kyiv that many of the fears surroundings funding and arming Ukraine without a clear endgame are coming true. In RS this week, David Sacks analyzes which of these concerns have been validated: Ukraine's maximalist war aims are unrealistic; the long war has decimated Zelensky's army; Kyiv's conscription policies are increasingly draconian; morale in the country is collapsing; and corruption in the government is rampant.Accompanying the changing domestic and battlefield dynamics is lagging support among Ukraine's most important international backers. The piece focuses primarily on Washington, where reluctance to fund Kyiv — primarily from Republicans in Congress — has steadily grown in recent months, and focus has quickly shifted away from Europe as war has broken out in the Middle East. The Biden administration's pursuit of new strategies, including framing support for Kyiv as good for the American economy and combining the next tranche of aid with a number of other policy priorities, show that Ukraine's war effort no longer has the same political power it once did.Public opinion in the United States has also trended away from aid for Ukraine."Public support for aid to Ukraine has been in decline for months in the U.S., and Zelensky's visit did nothing to revive it," reads the TIME piece. "Some 41% of Americans want Congress to provide more weapons to Kyiv, down from 65% in June, when Ukraine began a major counteroffensive, according to a Reuters survey taken shortly after Zelensky's departure [from a visit to Washington in September.]" As the Quincy Institute's Anatol Lieven argued over a year ago: "Any peace initiative will have to come from the United States. (...) The Ukrainian government's ability to negotiate is crippled by (understandable) fury at the Russian invasion and Russian atrocities; by pressure from Ukrainian hardliners, especially in the military; and, increasingly, by the government's own rhetoric, which is committing Ukraine to goals (like the recovery of Crimea) that could only be achieved by total military victory over Russia."Zelensky's reluctance to pursue a diplomatic solution with an invading country is understandable and will be difficult to change without Washington's support, and the increasingly clear realities of the war laid out in TIME could incentivize the Biden administration to do so.In other diplomatic news related to the war in Ukraine:—Malta hosted officials from 65 countries for a third round of "peace talks" surrounding the war in Ukraine. Participation has increased from 15 during the first round in Copenhagen in June and 43 for the second round in Saudi Arabia in August, according to the Associated Press. However, Russia continues to not be invited to these negotiations, and Moscow has dismissed the initiative. —New Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) has moved forward with his pledge to separate aid for Ukraine from aid for Israel, going against the wishes of the White House and Senate Republican leadership. Johnson has said that he is supportive of Ukraine's cause, but called on the Biden administration to provide clear guidelines on what the objective and endgame in Ukraine are. —European politicians are planning a trip to the United States in an effort to shore up support for Ukraine and echoing the Biden administration's rhetoric on how the war effort strengthens the American economy. "We need to find ways to reach out to [the public] on both sides of the Atlantic — not to forget that there are actual electorates that see their problems in a certain way," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told Politico. "We have a plan to travel … to separate states, meeting — for example — the companies that sell equipment that actually create jobs in the U.S. Most of the money that has been spent on Ukraine was actually spent in the U.S." It is not yet clear which other politicians will accompany Lithuania's foreign minister. U.S. State Department news:During a press briefing on Wednesday, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller was asked about whether disagreements in Congress and the broader domestic political context could imperil aid for Ukraine."It continues to be important that the United States be there to help Ukraine defend itself against these horrific attacks that Russia has launched on them and continues to launch on them. And we believe, as a practical matter, that should funding for Ukraine get an up or down vote, it will pass in both houses of Congress," Miller said. "So I understand the kind of churn that has accompanied this, but it continues to be our position that funding is important, it should pass, and that as a practical matter if it gets a vote, it will pass."

New House Speaker Mike Johsnon made good on a promise to bring a separate $14.3 billion Israel aid bill to the floor Monday, saying he'll pay for it by making cuts elsewhere in the budget. This sets up a fight with the Senate and the White House, the first test for the newly minted Speaker.The White House has proposed to combine $60 billion in aid for Kyiv with $14 billion for Tel Aviv — along with $14 billion for border security funding and $7 billion for the Indo-Pacific — into one emergency spending package, a plan that has received robust support from Senate leadership in both parties, but has created some controversy among House and Senate Republicans.Johnson's alternative is "a poison pill and non-starter. It's just not the way we're going to proceed," according to Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "It's got to be bipartisan. And the House has to realize they can't work on a bill just with Republicans."Johnson, who emerged from a messy battle for the speakership last week, has been a quiet opponent of every Ukraine funding bill since May 2022. But his more recent rhetoric suggests that he may be more open to bringing a standalone funding package over the opposition of some of the more outspoken aid opponents in his party. "We can't allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine because I don't believe it would stop there, and would probably encourage and empower China to perhaps make a move on Taiwan," Johnson told Fox News' Sean Hannity on Thursday, during his first interview as the leader of the House GOP. "We're not gonna abandon [Ukraine]."Johnson, however, stressed the need for accountability. "We want to know what the objective there is. What is the endgame in Ukraine? The White House has not provided that," he said. Because House Republicans are still "working through" the conditions they want to attach to future Ukraine funding, and aid for Israel is more pressing, Johnson emphasized that the issues should be kept separate, telling Hannity that he had informed the White House that it was "consensus" within his conference that Congress needs to "bifurcate" the two issues.Some in the Senate GOP conference agree, having urged Congress to split up the proposal. Nine Republican Senators wrote a letter to leaders McConnell and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) making the case, and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), one of the leaders of the effort, circulated a memo detailing what he sees as the five major areas differentiating the two countries. "The administration seeks to link Ukraine and Israel funding. This is a grave error that betrays a lack of strategic focus. Each conflict is distinct and represents a different claim on U.S. interests," the memo reads.Republicans in the Senate have largely been more supportive of Ukraine aid than their counterparts in the House, and McConnell has been a vocal advocate for Biden's plan. According to Politico, the minority leader has abandoned "his typically cautious style when it comes to aiding Ukraine, shrugging off potshots at his leadership and expending political capital for the embattled country despite a painful rift in the party." But Vance maintains that his colleagues agree that the question should remain separated from support for Israel."There's actually pretty wide consensus that we should separate Israel from the package," Vance told Politico. "Whether there are nine Republicans who are willing to break off and join the Democrats is an open question," he added, referring to the number of GOP votes that would be required to avoid a filibuster.As the Senate prepares to unveil its spending proposal, Johnson is moving ahead with funding for Israel. "We're gonna bring forward a standalone Israel funding measure," he said on Fox News. "We're gonna find pay fors in the budget, we're not just printing money to send it overseas. We're gonna find the cuts elsewhere to do that." As Punchbowl News put it, seeking such cuts for aid for Israel is "unheard of." The bill, which was released on Monday afternoon, contains $14.3 billion in money for Israel, offset by $14.3 billion in cuts to the Internal Revenue Service and the Inflation Reduction Act. By including these cuts, the House GOP is reportedly hoping to shore up Republican support and possibly push some Democrats to oppose the measure. Given the GOP's slim margin in the House, Johnson can only afford four defections if all Democrats oppose his legislation. Two Republicans have already said that will vote against funding for Israel. "I will be voting NO on all funding packages for the Ukraine war (as I have from the beginning) and now the Israel war," wrote Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on the social media platform X on Sunday. "This week the House will vote on $14.5 billion foreign aid package for Israel, in addition to the $3.8 billion that already passed. I will be a NO vote," added Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). "Less than 1/3 of the 49,000 people who responded to my poll today support this additional funding. We simply can't afford it."Separating the two issues could eventually complicate efforts to pass Ukraine funding, even if Johnson proves more amenable than some of his colleagues. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) — an enthusiastic supporter of the new Speaker — has used the fact that a majority of Republicans voted in favor of an amendment that stripped $300 million in security assistance to Kyiv from the defense appropriations, as evidence that a GOP speaker would go against the majority of his party by bringing such legislation to the floor. "According to the Hastert Rule, which Speaker McCarthy agreed to in January, you cannot use Democrats to roll a majority of the majority," Gaetz said earlier this month, "certainly on something as consequential as Ukraine."

The search for a new House Speaker finally concluded on Wednesday with the fourth Republican caucus nominee Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) prevailing on the floor, earning the vote of every GOP member. No doubt, the first major issue facing the House right now is President Joe Biden's emergency spending bill, which includes $60 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel. The new Speaker has not commented on how will approach the massive funding bill. When asked about it on Tuesday evening after emerging as the Republican nominee, he told reporters that he was "not doing policy tonight."A legislative plan that Johnson circulated two days before clinching the Speakership names support for Rep. Mike McCaul's (R-Texas) resolution condemning Hamas as a top priority, but he does not mention the funding package. However, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said on CNN that it was his "understanding" that Johnson was willing to bring the legislation to the floor. While sending more aid to Ukraine has proven a key sticking point among Republicans in a series of Congressional debates in recent months, Johnson has not been outspoken on either side of the issue. In the weeks following Russia's invasion, Johnson supported "debilitating sanctions" on Moscow and posted on X that "America stands with Ukraine." However, by May 2022, Johnson was one of only 57 members to vote against the first tranche of $40 billion in supplemental aid to Ukraine. He released a statement saying, "'We should not be sending another $40 billion abroad when our own border is in chaos, American mothers are struggling to find baby formula, gas prices are at record highs, and American families are struggling to make ends meet, without sufficient oversight over where the money will go."He has consistently opposed aid for Kyiv since then. His voting record has earned him an "F" grade in Bill Kristol's GOP Congressional Report Card. Meanwhile, the packaging of Israel and Ukraine into one bill has been a divisive question in the Republican caucus, including some who are strong supporters of funding Tel Aviv and Kyiv individually. Nine Republican Senators, led by Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) wrote a letter to Senate leadership last week urging them to consider the issues of funding for Tel Aviv and Kyiv separately. "These are two separate conflicts and it would be wrong to leverage support of aid to Israel in attempt to get additional aid for Ukraine across the finish line," the Senators write. "Furthermore, it would be irresponsible and we should not risk a government shutdown by bundling these priorities together and thus complicating the process and lessening the likelihood of a funding package." The letter also notes that "22 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives wrote to the then-leading candidates to be the next Speaker of the House urging them to deny attempts to couple these issues." The House members who have been opposed to linking the two issues will likely seek to exert similar pressure on Johnson.Many Republicans with similar voting records as Johnson have adopted more aggressive rhetoric than he has toward Ukraine and Biden's strategy. Given that he — like the rest of the GOP conference — has expressed unequivocal support for Israel — Johnson may be willing to bring the combined package up to a vote.

President Joe Biden told the nation on Thursday night that he was planning to submit a request to Congress for an aid package that will include funding for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and border security. "It's a smart investment that's going to pay dividends for American security for generations," Biden said.According to the Associated Press' Seung Min Kim, "the supplemental request will include $60 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel, $10 billion for humanitarian efforts, $14 billion for managing U.S.-Mexico border and fighting fentanyl trafficking and $7 billion for Indo-Pacific." The request is expected to be submitted on Friday. National security adviser Jake Sullivan had confirmed these plans over the weekend."The President has made clear that he is going to go to Congress with a package of funding for Ukraine as well as continued support for Israel," Sullivan said during an appearance on CBS's Face the Nation. "You can expect intensive engagement with Congress this very week, as we work on such a package and seek to secure bipartisan support for it."The idea of such a proposal — which reports have indicated will also include aid for Taiwan and funding for border security — has been floating around in the weeks since House Republicans decided to strip $300 million in security assistance for Kyiv in the Defense Department appropriations bill, in the latest sign that the GOP is growing increasingly skeptical about funding Ukraine's war effort.Some Republicans on Capitol Hill have been critical of the idea, but earlier reporting said that the administration was looking to "jam" these members, anticipating that Republicans would ultimately not oppose a package that included funding for three of the party's policy priorities. Hesitant Republicans in Washington are not the only reason that Biden and his administration may feel like they have to pass the next tranche of aid quickly. As the Times reported earlier this week, some in Washington and European capitals fear that support for Ukraine may have peaked. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed concern that the war in the Middle East may divert attention away from his country's effort. "But even before the war in the Mideast began last week, there was a strong sense in Europe, watching Washington, that the world had reached 'peak Ukraine,'"reports the Times, adding, "that support for Kyiv's fight against Russia's invasion would never again be as high as it was a few months ago.""Even in Europe, Ukraine is an increasingly divisive issue," he continues. "Voters in Slovakia handed a victory to Robert Fico, a former prime minister sympathetic to Russia. A vicious election campaign in Poland, one of Ukraine's staunchest allies, has emphasized strains with Kyiv." Another constituency that is showing signs of fatigue is the American public. A poll from the Eurasia Group Foundation showed that 58% of Americans think the U.S. should push for a negotiated end to the war.Katrina vanden Heuvel, publisher of The Nation, and columnist James Carden wrote in Responsible Statecraft this week that Biden might react to these shifting domestic and global dynamics, arguing that the president would be wise to take his cue from the public and begin the "the long, arduous journey" towards a diplomatic solution. "While the seeming shift in public opinion is an important one and should signal to the administration that the time has come to pursue negotiations," they write, "it is clear that those whose opinions matter most — in Kiev, Moscow, and Washington — aren't terribly interested in doing so."In other diplomatic news related to the war in Ukraine:—Vladimir Putin met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, in what was the Russian president's first trip outside of the former Soviet Union this year. The meeting took place against the backdrop of war raging in the Middle East, with both leaders calling for an end to hostilities. During his speech, Putin talked up his relationship with Xi and touted the Belt and Road initiative, saying that it was a plan "aimed at creating more equitable, multipolar world relations."—The West's reaction to the violence in Israel and Gaza has underscored the Global South's reluctance to back the Western effort in Ukraine, according to the Financial Times."Western support for Israel's assault on Gaza has poisoned efforts to build consensus with significant developing countries on condemning Russia's war against Ukraine, officials and diplomats have warned," the FT reports. "We have definitely lost the battle in the Global South," an unnamed senior G7 diplomat told FT. "All the work we have done with the Global South [over Ukraine] has been lost . . . Forget about rules, forget about world order. They won't ever listen to us again." The diplomat went on to say that the West will lose all "credibility" because of its hypocritical reaction to the two wars. The report cited, for example, the West pressuring the Global South to condemn Russia's violations of international law while not reacting in the same way to Israel restricting Gazans access to water, gas, and electricity.—The war in the Middle East is an opportunity for Washington to work with Russia and China to avoid escalation, say the Quincy Institute's George Beebe and Anatol Lieven. Given the hostility between the nations, this will be no easy task, but the circumstances dictate that the Biden administration must pursue diplomatic channels. "It will require opening a high-level channel of communication between senior Biden administration officials and the Kremlin to discuss the crisis, coupled with an implicit signal that Washington is willing to address some concrete Russian concerns about the U.S. military's role in Syria and about the need for rekindling Israel-Palestine diplomacy," Beebe and Lieven write in RS. "By contrast, stiff-arming Chinese and Russian involvement would only incentivize their opposition to U.S. policies. And if there's one thing Washington does not need in this crisis, it is yet more parties intent on exploiting instability."U.S. State Department news:State Department spokesman Matthew Miller spoke about how the lack of the House Speaker might affect the administration's plans for more funding. "We have made clear that we stand by Israel, just as we stand by Ukraine. They are two democracies defending themselves from attacks from outside," he said. "And so as we do everything we can as an Executive Branch, there is a time when we're going to need to go to Congress for more assistance, and it would be nice to have a functioning partner in that regard."

During a hearing to be the next U.S. ambassador to Israel, Biden nominee Jacob Lew was sure to affirm Washington's support for Israel as it responds to Hamas's attacks by shelling Gaza with missiles and preparing for a possible ground invasion. But the former secretary of the Treasury spent just as much — if not more — time sparring with Republican members over his role in the implementation of the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran during his hearing on Wednesday. There has been no permanent ambassador to Israel since Tom Nides left the post in July. It's been a month since Lew was nominated, but the events of the last 10 days pushed the Senate to act quickly to fill the role. There were a number of questions about the current war in yesterday's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, with Lew emphasizing Israel's right to defend itself. He also stressed the importance of following the laws of war, but acknowledged the impossibility of avoiding civilian deaths in the kind of campaign that Israel is waging, pointing to past U.S. efforts to combat ISIS as evidence.GOP members of the committee, however, were much more interested in Lew's previous role in the Obama administration for which they accused him of facilitating Iran's entrance into the U.S. financial markets, and ultimately resourcing Hamas.In the words of Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho), the ranking member on the committee, "this whole thing is about Iran."Sen. Marco Rubio,(R-Fla.) accused Lew of "misleading" Senators while he was at the Treasury and for relaxing sanctions on Iran, a charge Lew vehemently denied.Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called Lew a "critical piece" of the Obama administration's "campaign of appeasement" toward Iran.After hearing Republican after Republican zero on this issue, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the newly-named chairman of the committee, retorted that he had been very lenient in allowing members to pursue a line of questioning focused on sanctions and the nuclear issue, issues which Lew would not be directly responsible for if confirmed to his new role."I would just like to point out that we do have a nominee for the office of sanctions coordinator," Cardin said. "And I hope that we can get a hearing on that nominee because I think that would be the appropriate place to talk about sanctions enforcement and previous policies concerning sanctions enforcement."When it came to policy towards Israel, Lew hewed very closely to the Biden administration's line, often invoking the president's exact words in the days since the latest war in Gaza broke out. "The president said as recently as this morning, without the state of Israel, it's not just the people of Israel who aren't safe," Lew said when asked why the U.S.-Israel relationship was special. "Jews around the world aren't safe." The hearing was also marked by a series of interruptions early in the proceedings, with three protesters calling for a "ceasefire now," and for Washington to stop sending aid that they said was allowing for the "genocide of Palestinians." A few Democrats raised concerns about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza. Lew said that it was important to "minimize" the "collateral damage" of Israel's war, but that now was not the time to "lecture" Tel Aviv on "what they have to do to establish the security that they have a responsibility to provide."The White House has urged the Senate to move Lew's nomination out of committee and to a full Senate vote quickly, though some Republicans are reportedly mulling putting a hold on his confirmation.

Jim Jordan's bid to become the next Speaker of the House gained momentum today, with a number of prominent Republican members reversing earlier statements and pledging to support his bid. According to a new report from Axios, that change of heart may have been motivated in part by assurances from the Ohio Congressman that he would allow a floor vote on linking Ukraine funding with Israel funding if he wins the gavel. Axios' reporting cites four House Republicans that left meetings with the Speaker nominee "under the impression" that Jordan would allow such a vote. Many of the members who came out in support of Jordan's bid this morning cited productive conversations with the Congressman, without providing any specifics. Some of the members who surprisingly endorsed Jordan's bid this morning are defense hawks like Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who were reportedly concerned about Jordan's reluctance to continue funding Kyiv's war effort and his desire to enact that 1% across-the-board spending cut that could have included the Pentagon. ""He's not going to block a vote,' said one of the House Republicans who spoke with Jordan," according to Axios. A spokesman for Jordan's office told Axios that the Congressman made no promises, and that "Jordan's conversations were about working to find the right approach, rather than specific promises." As RS previously reported, a significant number of Republicans on Capitol Hill — including a number of supporters of further aid for Ukraine — had balked at the Biden administration's planned proposal to combine aid for Kyiv, Tel Aviv, and more into a single package.Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who last month emphasized his support for supporting Ukraine, likened the move to combine that effort with aid to Israel to "blackmail."Others were more blunt. "They shouldn't be tied together. I will not vote to fund Ukraine. Absolutely not," said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) last week. "Israel is totally separate."Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who has been a staunch supporter of Jordan's candidacy, said on CNN last week "however you feel about Israel and Ukraine, I think a responsible and reasonable government ought to address those questions separately." During the interview, he implied that Jordan shared that sentiment. Gaetz earlier led an effort to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from the Speakership, in part because the former Speaker had made a "secret side deal" with Biden to keep funding Ukraine.The floor vote for Speaker is expected to be held tomorrow, and it is not yet confirmed whether Jordan has enough votes to cross the 217-vote threshold, despite the string of eleventh-hour endorsements.