Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said on Wednesday that American taxpayers should not have to fund Israeli strikes on civilian targets in Lebanon.
“If Israel insists on destroying civilian targets in Lebanon, let them buy and build their own weapons,” Massie wrote on X. “American taxpayers should not be funding this.”
The Kentucky congressman posted a video of a residential building being flattened by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut. The bomb appeared to be a 2,000-pound MK-84, which the US supplies to Israel, outfitted with a guidance kit known as a SPICE system.
The SPICE kits are made by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, an Israeli-owned weapons maker, but some are manufactured in the US under a joint venture with Lockheed Martin. In October 2023, the State Department approved the export of $320 million in SPICE kits to Israel.
Massie has often been the lone Republican in Congress voting against pro-Israel legislation and consistently votes against all foreign aid. Massie’s position has made him a target of the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, which said it spent over $400,000 against the congressman in the primary earlier this year, but Massie still easily won.
Earlier this year, Massie said in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that every Republican member of Congress has an AIPAC handler.
