[Conflict is looming between lawmakers who believe financial
support to Israel should be conditioned to humanitarian aid in Gaza
and those who don’t. ]
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BERNIE SANDERS STARTS AN IMPORTANT FIGHT IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
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Grace Segers
November 20, 2023
The New Republic
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_ Conflict is looming between lawmakers who believe financial support
to Israel should be conditioned to humanitarian aid in Gaza and those
who don’t. _
Bernie Sanders, Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.O)
In the wake of the terrorist attack by Hamas in October, in which
roughly 1,200 Israelis were killed and hundreds taken hostage, the
White House, along with a slew of American lawmakers, have highlighted
the need to aid Israel. But some Democrats in Congress have raised
concerns about the humanitarian need in Gaza, as Israel has embarked
on a military campaign with the stated goal of eradicating
Hamas, resulting in the deaths
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more than 11,000 Palestinians, many of them children, according to the
Health Ministry in Gaza. Meanwhile, the growing calls for either a
cease-fire or a temporary pause in the conflict are mounting, amid
growing backlash to Israel’s response among younger Americans and
Democratic voters.
On Saturday, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said in a statement that
military aid to Israel should be conditioned on a “fundamental
change in their military and political positions.” Those conditions
include “an end to the indiscriminate bombing which has taken
thousands of civilian lives and a significant pause in military
operations,” allowing displaced Gazans to return to their homes,
forbidding the “long-term Israeli re-occupation or blockade of
Gaza,” ending settler violence in the occupied West Bank and “a
freeze on settlement expansion,” as well as a renewed commitment to
peace talks and a pursuit to a two-state solution to the decades-long
conflict.
Here’s How a Joe Manchin Candidacy Helps BidenIt’s not a crazy
notion. Just look at the polling data.
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“While Israel has the right to go after Hamas, Netanyahu’s
right-wing extremist government does not have the right to wage almost
total warfare against the Palestinian people,” Sanders said,
referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Sanders, who is
Jewish, had faced blowback from progressives
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not explicitly supporting a cease-fire.
Sanders’s fellow Vermonter, Representative Becca Balint, became the
first Jewish member of Congress to endorse a cease-fire earlier this
month, saying in an op-ed in VTDigger
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“what is needed right now is an immediate break in violence to allow
for a true negotiated cease-fire.”
“Israel has a moral responsibility to ensure that civilians are
protected at all costs, even in the midst of war,” Balint wrote.
“Even with Hamas operations intentionally embedded among civilians,
Israel cannot bomb targets in densely populated areas. The United
States must demand it.”
Politico had reported last week
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progressive Democrats in Congress are tentatively discussing
conditioning military aid to Israel. However, support for these
preliminary talks is far from universal, and the report earned almost
immediate backlash
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several Democrats.
“Conditioning aid to Israel will only have one outcome: it would
help Hamas in their goal of completely annihilating Israel and the
Jewish people. It would weaken America’s national security and our
fight against terror,” Representative Josh Gottheimer said in a
statement on Saturday. “Any legislation that conditions security aid
to our key democratic ally, Israel, is a nonstarter and will lose
scores of votes.”
Democratic Representative Jared Moskowitz said on the social media
site X that “if Bernie Sanders puts political requirements on the
Aid to Israel, I will work in the House to remove those conditions or
condition Aid to Gaza that requires the removal of Hamas.”
“Let’s not play this game. Send the aid to both,”
Moskowitz wrote
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Another Democrat, Representative Steny Hoyer, called the discussions
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irresponsible move.”
Congress has yet to approve any aid to Israel; lawmakers are currently
working on a package that would also include aid to Ukraine and revamp
the nation’s policies regarding the southern border. The House
passed a stand-alone Israeli aid bill, but it was blocked in the
Senate. It’s unclear when a finalized aid package will be ready for
a vote, making the prospect of aid to Israel ever more tenuous.
Some Democratic lawmakers have argued that respecting humanitarian
needs is critical for Israel’s global position. “In order to
maintain international support, they have to demonstrate that they are
abiding by the Geneva Conventions and our basic expectations,”
Senator Brian Schatz told me earlier this month.
Indeed, while the U.S. continues to be a staunch supporter of Israel,
there are growing international calls for a cessation in hostilities.
On Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council voted in favor of a
resolution
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for pauses in the conflict to allow for humanitarian aid to be brought
to Gaza, although the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Russia abstained
on the measure. Last month, 120 countries voted in favor
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a resolution calling for a “humanitarian truce” to the war. The
U.S. was one of 14 countries to vote against the truce, and 45 other
countries abstained.
“There’s more and more of us who can’t ignore the reality that
Israel does not have a plan,” Democratic Senator Peter Welch of
Vermont told Punchbowl News
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the weekend. Although the need for humanitarian aid is clear, Welch
added, “the best humanitarian aid is to have a war plan that
doesn’t create such a humanitarian catastrophe.”
The White House has been left to toe a delicate line in recent weeks.
When asked whether the U.S. was violating the so-called “Leahy
law,”
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prohibits providing aid to governments committing human rights abuses,
a White House official demurred, in a Sunday interview with
CBS’s _Face the Nation_
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“I’m not going to get into legal determinations in public,” said
White House principal deputy national security adviser Jon Finer.
However, Finer added that while Israel has the right to “embark on
combat operations” in southern Gaza, the White House has “a real
concern” about the hundreds of thousands of Gazans that have fled to
the south at Israel’s behest.
“We think that their operations should not go forward until those
people—those additional civilians—have been accounted for in their
military planning,” Finer continued.
Recent polling has shown a growing generational divide in opinion of
the war. A Quinnipiac poll
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showed that while 54 percent of voters overall say their sympathies
lie more with Israel than with Palestine, 52 percent of voters between
the ages of 18 and 34 say their sympathies lie more with Palestinians.
Sixty percent of Democrats disapprove of Israel’s response to the
October 7 attack by Hamas, along with 66 percent of voters between the
ages of 18 and 34.
The news is also grim for Biden, as a new poll by NBC News
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that majorities of voters in all parties disapprove of his handling of
foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war. The survey showed that 70
percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 34 disapproved of his
handling of the war. As young voters will be critical to his electoral
chances in 2024, these figures arrive at an inopportune time for the
president.
Earlier this month, a coalition of groups dedicated to mobilizing
young, progressive voters sent an open letter
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Biden warning that his response to the Israel-Hamas war could
demotivate Millennials and Gen Zers.
“We write to you to issue a very stark and unmistakable warning: you
and your Administration’s stance on Gaza risks millions of young
voters staying home or voting third party next year,” the letter
said. “Young people are a cornerstone of a winning Democratic
coalition, and the vast majority of young people in this country are
rightfully horrified by the atrocities committed with our tax dollars,
with your support, and our nation’s military backing.”
_Grace Segers
[[link removed]] @Grace_Segers
[[link removed]] is a staff writer at The New
Republic._
_Support fierce, independent journalism. Subscribe to The New Republic
today!
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