Senator: JSOC to the rescue after State Dept rebuff
Officials: 4,500 U.S. SOF have “significant role” in support to Israel.
The State Department pressured a bipartisan congressional delegation not to visit Israel shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack but quickly changed its position after Joint Special Operations Command offered to help, according to Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, who led the delegation.
Ernst told the SOF Imperatives Forum Feb. 8 that the delegation was in Bahrain Oct. 7 with plans to travel on to Israel, where she was scheduled to speak on Oct. 8, but had to divert to Jordan because the Hamas attack had closed the airport where the delegation’s plane was supposed to land.
As she was attempting to arrange travel into Israel from Jordan, the State Department tried to prevent the delegation from making the trip, Ernst said. “I caught holy hell from the State Department,” she said. “They kept telling me, ‘No, no, no, no, you’re not going in, we can’t support [you], you’re not going into Israel, it’s dangerous.’”
Ernst and her congressional colleagues “put the fight of our lives up,” she said. “I thought it was so important for us as members of a congressional delegation…to go into Israel and stand shoulder to shoulder with them.” But State “kept pushing back,” she said, adding that she responded by telling State, “You are the executive branch, but I am a member of Congress and I am a senator and you cannot tell me what I can and cannot do.”