Sen. Cruz criticizes Biden admin for restricting Israel cooperation.

Sen. Ted Cruz Slams Biden Administration’s Discrimination Against Israel

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has criticized the Biden administration for restricting cooperation in the Judea and Samaria region of Israel—calling it part of the government’s “anti-Semitic discrimination.”

President Joe Biden and his administration officials are pathologically obsessed with undermining Israel. Since day one of their administration, they have launched campaigns against our Israeli allies that are granular, whole of government, and done in secret,” Cruz said, according to a June 25 press release. “The State Department is telling the entire U.S. government not to cooperate with Jews in Judea and Samaria. And of course, it was sent to Congress in secret, and only revealed because reporters found out.”

Cruz vowed to do “everything possible” to reverse the administration’s decision and ensure that such “anti-Semitic discrimination” by Washington does not happen in the future.

In a June 24 post on Twitter, Hiba Nasr, a senior correspondent at the Washington Bureau of Saudi Arabia-based Asharq News, revealed that the U.S. State Department informed Congress on June 16 about “providing guidance to U.S. [Government] agencies that it would not be consistent with U.S. foreign policy objectives to support cooperation with #Israel in areas beyond the green line.”

The Green Line refers to the line of demarcation that separated Israeli, Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian forces at the conclusion of Israel’s War of Independence in 1948.

It served as Israel’s de-facto border until the 1967 Six-Day War during which the country increased its territory, bringing under control the regions of the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and the Sinai Peninsula.

The Judea and Samaria region is an administrative division in Israel that encompasses the entire West Bank area.

In his press release, Cruz pointed out that the Biden administration “defends funding scientific research in Wuhan with the Chinese Communist Party, but they’re discriminating against and banning cooperation with Jews based on where they live.”

Trump Policy Shift

Before the Trump administration came into power, U.S.-Israel development projects, including the Binational Agricultural Research and Development Foundation (BARD), the Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD), and the Binational Science Foundation (BSF), could not be conducted in regions that came under the Israeli government after the 1967 war.

In October 2020, Trump lifted such restrictions and signed bilateral agreements with Israel to further boost cooperation.