WASHINGTON — 18 senators voted Wednesday against sending additional U.S. military equipment to Israel — the first-ever rebuke of its kind in Congress, and a signal of how frustration has grown in Washington as Israeli forces have pounded Gaza with near-total support from President Joe Biden.
That group of senators voted against shipping Israel has used $774 million worth of tank rounds, which the military has used in attacks on children aid groups. TThe equipment is part of a package of US-Israeli arms deals that Biden unveiled in August.
The overwhelming majority of the House still voted in favor of allowing the arms transactions to proceed.
Still, this number represented an important stand against Biden and a challenge to the idea that support for Israel is beyond question.
And in particular, some centrist lawmakers and colleagues who have expressed relatively little criticism of Israel supported the proposal, such as Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.).
Senators will now vote on two additional anti-weapons bills for Israel, targeting package bombs and mortars worth more than $300 million.
Critics of Israel’s US-backed offensive in Gaza knew they would never actually secure a majority of votes. But while recognizing the Republican Party’s unwillingness to question Israel and the intensely pro-Israel positions also held by much of the Democrats, skeptics of the Israeli campaigns instead sought to demonstrate significant level of opposition to continued US involvement in the wars.
They sought to put senators on notice given the enormous moral and strategic toll of the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon — which has killed tens of thousands of people since last October, when Hamas attacked Israel and began the latest round of fighting. The conflict has since expanded to include fighting between Israel and the Hamas-linked Lebanese militia Hezbollah.
And those same critics argue that US support for the Israelis violates US and international law, given that Israel is killing civilians and restricting humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and allied senators, including moderates like Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), rallied their votes against the arms transfers. They said they recognize Israel’s right to self-defense, but highlighted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to heed calls from humanitarian groups for more aid to reach civilians, and his opposition to US requests for Israel’s to change behavior.
The Biden administration did everything it could to convince senators to continue supporting arms deals for Israel. On Tuesday, the White House sent a talking points document to Congress claiming that lawmakers who voted for the bills blocking the sale would help Hamas, HuffPost revealed. The administration also sent Secretary of State Tony Blinken to Capitol Hill for a briefing with lawmakers ahead of the vote.
Van Hollen told HuffPost he did not believe Blinken’s presence would sway senators on Wednesday, given the Biden administration’s clear record of enabling controversial Israeli practices. “I can’t imagine this has convinced anyone, because a big part of the problem here is that President Biden refuses to exercise American influence to ensure compliance with our law and our values,” the senator said ahead of the mood. “That’s the fundamental problem.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) had also privately urged his colleagues to vote against the bills, HuffPost first reported.
The administration’s and Schumer’s efforts aligned with those of Israelis and fervently pro-Israel groups. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the country’s largest pro-Israel lobby, called the legislation “dangerous” and urged voters to contact their senators to oppose it; It walked ads with that message in 17 states. Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Herzog also visited Congress on Wednesday.
Yair Lapid, a prominent Israeli lawmaker who has clashed with Netanyahu, wrote in a post from Tuesday This has nothing to do with your opinion of the current government, what matters is that you stand with the people of Israel.”
(The bills would not represent an “arms embargo,” as their proponents often do remark.)
An AIPAC-affiliated group focused on countering criticism of Israel among Democrats, Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), also sought to minimize the number of votes the bills could win. “The Biden administration has confirmed that Israel is adhering to the standards set by the United States for humanitarian assistance to Gaza,” DMFI said argued.
However, aid agencies and experts – including within the US government – have repeatedly questioned the Biden administration’s assessments of Israeli behavior, and say the humanitarian situation in Gaza is worsening rather than improving.
In one scorecard Published last week, eight aid groups compared Israeli actions to steps the Biden administration advised Israel to take in October, concluding: “Israel not only did not meet U.S. criteria. …but at the same time took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, especially in northern Gaza. That situation is in an even more dire state today than it was a month ago.”
Wednesday’s vote represented a big opportunity, argued Jeremy Ben-Ami, whose liberal pro-Israel group J Street was part of the broad coalition of advocacy groups, from labor unions to Quakers, that supported the bills.
“Symbolism has meaning,” Ben-Ami wrote in a Sunday statement. “Senators who vote ‘yes’ could send the important message that even strong friends of Israel disapprove of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s handling of the Gaza war, as well as his far-right coalition’s lack of respect for the Biden administration and inability of the US government to exert its influence. to change Netanyahu’s policies and actions.”
