Last night, Congress rejected a pair of Bernie Sanders-led resolutions that would have blocked the sale 1,000-pound bombs and bulldozers to Israel, but Democrats supported both measures in record fashion
Sanders has introduced similar efforts on three other occasions. Last April, just 15 Senators voted for them. However, this time around 40 Democratic Senators backed the bulldozer resolution and 36 voted in favor of the one that blocked bombs.
For years, polling has shown that a majority of Democratic voters have soured on U.S. support for Israel, and recent developments have only increased that sentiment.
“More than anything, the Iran war has probably been the issue,” an anonymous swing-district House Democrat told Axios. “That’s the bigger issue because you have people like, ‘Why are we in this f*cking war?’ And all lines lead to Netanyahu.”
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) who opposed Sanders’s previous resolutions, but flipped last night, openly declared that Benjamin Netanyahu had “screwed up the politics of the Middle East” and is “destroying” bipartisan support for Israel.
Perhaps most notably, no Democratic senator currently considering a run for president voted against the resolutions.
The Sanders vote comes just days after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who could have presidential aspirations of her own, announced that she would vote against any military aid for Israel, including weapons that are deemed “defensive.”
Center for International Policy Vice President for Government Affairs Dylan Williams posted a succinct analysis of the vote on Twitter:
The fact that 40 of 47 Democratic Senators voted to withhold military hardware from Israel is a new high water mark in holding Israel accountable for violating US and international law. It is still troubling that a few Democrats and all Republicans voted to supply the arms.
With over 70% of Democratic voters in favor of halting arms sales to Israel, Senators who opposed these measures cannot truly represent the party in top positions on relevant committees or in caucus leadership—nor can they inspire the support needed to regain the White House.
Ever-growing numbers of Americans are making clear that they do not want to subsidize a foreign country that pushes the United States to wage costly wars and uses our aid and arms to commit atrocities that undermine our values and security. Much of Congress needs to catch up.
Let’s get to the few that Williams mentions. Here’s the seven Democrats who voted against the resolutions:
Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Chris Coons of Delaware, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, and Chuck Schumer of New York.
None of these are especially surprising, but Schumer is Senate Minority Leader and he has now been lapped on this issue by longtime Israel supporters, like Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, and Elissa Slotkin, all of whom backed the Sanders effort.
Earlier this week, 100 activists were arrested outside the offices of Schumer (D-NY) and his fellow New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand who, as previously voted, also voted against the resolutions.
“Schumer, Gillibrand, talk is cheap! / They’re sending bombs, how can you sleep?,” chanted the protesters.
“Schumer and Gillibrand are betraying their constituents and woefully out of line with the Democratic voter base,” said Jewish Voice for Peace Action political director. “Instead of sending the bombs that Israel uses to commit war crimes, the people of New York want our representatives to invest in live-saving policies here at home. We need to stop arming Israel so that the people of Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran, and across the region can live. Millions of lives depend on it.”
Shortly after the vote, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) posted a video calling on Schumer to step aside.
The DNC’s AIPAC resolution
Last week, members of Democratic National Committee (DNC) voted down a symbolic resolution rejecting AIPAC spending.
“The Democratic Party, time and time again, is presented with absolutely winning issues,” said Allison Minnerly, the Florida DNC member who submitted the resolution. “People 1) hate corporate money and 2) do not want to be involved in further conflict in the Middle East.”
In a tweet, DNC Chair Ken Martin insisted that the measure was only rejected because other resolutions rejecting dark money had already been passed.
“Let’s be clear on what really happened: Today, the Resolutions Committee voted to pass a resolution condemning the corrosive influence of ALL dark money in Democratic primaries,” he wrote. “We had various resolutions that focused on different industries and groups, and instead of going one-by-one, we passed a blanket repudiation. I have made my position on this clear from day one: We must end the influence of dark money in our politics and restore power back to the people.”
This explanation doesn’t exactly add up, as members also punted on a resolution limiting aid to Israel. It seems clear that the party’s establishment didn’t want to tackle anything connected to the country, even though the party’s base has moved to the left on the issue.
“It says that the Democratic Party just isn’t willing to have a hard conversation, isn’t willing to stand up, and just misses the mark when voters need it the most,” Minnerly told The Intercept after the vote. “It is an embarrassing display of cowardice.”
“Today’s vote once again showed that Democratic leadership is asleep at the wheel when it comes to one of the biggest existential threats to the party,” said IMEU executive director Margaret DeReus in a statement. “AIPAC’s extreme agenda for unconditional weapons funding to Israel is deeply out of step not just with most Democrats, but with the majority of the American people.”
Odds & Ends
🇮🇱 Congress must act to stop the Israeli war machine
🏛️ In historic Senate vote, over 75% of Democrats vote to block arms sales to Israel
🇮🇷 Understanding the Iran war in the context of U.S. imperialism
⛓️💥 The Israel lobby is fracturing as young Jews abandon Zionism
☢️ Counterpunch: Negotiating With Bombs
🫏 Haaretz: Opposing Weapons Sales to Israel Is the New Democratic Norm
⚠ Responsible Statecraft: For peace with Iran to work a reckoning with Israel is in order
📊 Drop Site: Voters Think Candidates Who Won’t Stand Up To AIPAC Won’t Fight On Other Issues, Either: New Poll
🙋♂️ Jewish Currents: Democratic Senators Face Pressure on Israel Arms Sales Vote
👀 The Hill: Vance says young voters ‘do not love’ Trump’s Middle East policy at Turning Point event
🇺🇸 Jacobin: Israel and the US Have Been Waging War on Iran’s Development
🪖 Common Dreams: Hegseth Impeachment Articles Land as Thousands More US Troops Deploy for Iran War
🎙️ Jewish Insider: Hasan Piker doubles down on Hamas support
I think this is a recent story worth some attention:
Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti facing ‘escalating abuse’ in Israeli jails….The jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti is at immediate risk in Israeli jails, where he has been attacked three times in as many weeks, including in one assault last month where prison guards set a dog on the 66-year-old, his lawyer has said….On Wednesday, the 24th anniversary of his imprisonment, international celebrities including Cate Blanchett, Bryan Adams and Don Cheadle added their names to a high-profile demand for his release that is already backed by hundreds of cultural figures and former global leaders…..Mandela, South Africa’s first democratically elected president after the end of apartheid, in 2002 told his lawyer Khader Shkirat: “What is happening to Barghouti is exactly the same as what happened to me. The government tried to de-legitimise the African National Congress and its armed struggle by putting me on trial.”
Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti facing ‘escalating abuse’ in Israeli jails | Palestine | The Guardian
I listened to the debate and was disappointed to hear Sanders repeat the nonsense about Israel’s right to self-defense. That was the Democrats covering their own criminal derelictions for voting against the cease fire in November of 2023 and giving Joesph Biden, Kamala Harris, Anthony Blinkin, Matthew Miller, et. al a pass for direct participation in war crimes and war propaganda. After nearly a 2 decade-long illegal blockade, use of the Dahiya doctrine, and Hannibal Directive, our Democrats have been just as complicit as the GOP.
They are still not taking off the gloves or exercising their existing power to introduce a resolution to hold the 2/3rds vote the 14th Amendment election law already required to remove Trump’s disqualification to hold any elective office again. He took the oath of office and then publicly demanded the Constitution be terminated. That’s not optional, the People ratified the Constitution and John Roberts doesn’t have a role to play in that textual assignment of responsibility to conduct that vote, before Trump took power unlawfully again, and started pardoning his co-conspirators for the crimes he had been impeached for. Colorado courts determined that he committed an insurrection.
He has never stopped violating that oath since then, and has declared his own private wars, murdered people on the high seas, committed piracy, used illegal threats to invade Greenland, Nicaragua, Karg Island, etc. We already had laws against all of that and don’t need new ones. SCOTUS was correct that Colorado can’t add extra-Constitutional qualifications to their election ballots. But SCOTUS and Mitch McConnell can’t bypass the black-letter law the People ratified in the 14th Amendment either. Trump could never have obtained the required 2/3rds vote, and millions of people in Gaza, Lebanon, Nicaragua, and Iran would still be alive, and have their homes – if Congress had followed the Constitution and the laws we already have on the books. Nothing is stopping Democrats from adopting a resolution to demand that 14th Amendment 2/3rds constitutionally required vote today. It’s not like we don’t have an on-going insurrection today, with Trump threatening to cancel our elections, invading and occupying Blue States, etc.
“None of these are especially surprising, but Schumer is Senate Minority Leader and he has now been lapped on this issue by longtime Israel supporters, like Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, and Elissa Slotkin, all of whom backed the Sanders effort.”
Booker, Klobuchar, Slotkin starting to feel safer in the anti Israel’s war crimes crowd that continues to grow.
Joining the “One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This” crowd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJGJvNTjpR8