How Congress manipulates its own rules to make sure Israel still gets its weapons

On Tuesday, Melat Kiros defeated 15-term incumbent Diana DeGette in Colorado, adding to the list of progressive victories in this year’s Democratic primaries. Kiros won a safe Democratic seat, meaning her primary, like many of the other progressive victors’, was tantamount to winning the general election. Kiros’ victory adds her to a list of progressive victories across the Democratic primaries that will substantially increase the voting power of more left-leaning and anti-genocide Democrats in Congress. 

The very same day, events in the House of Representatives showed how badly they are needed when the Republican-led House Rules Committee shut down an effort to challenge foreign aid to Israel. Although the parliamentary moves proved a setback, they also demonstrated that the growing number of Democrats and even a few Republicans, elected officials willing to vote against greater support for Israel, might be able to exert that political influence in the near future.

More than a numbers game

The story begins in the House Rules Committee, where House Republicans were overseeing which proposed amendments to the annual State Department Appropriations bill would be brought to a vote and which would simply be rejected out of hand.

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Outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, brought several amendments to eliminate foreign military aid, one each for Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. The one regarding Egypt appears to have been withdrawn, but the other two were advanced by the Rules Committee. 

There is no chance that Massie’s amendments will be passed. The amendment is sloppily written and provides members of the House with all the loopholes they need to vote the bill down and still claim they are willing to reconsider arming Israel. The amendment regarding Jordan will be voted down as long as the one regarding Israel is.

Still, this doesn’t mean the amendments didn’t put several Democrats on the hot seat. 

Various Democrats talked about how the amendment would strip money from “diplomatic programs” for Israel, along with the military aid. It’s a bogus argument. The bill provides scant funding for anything other than military aid. 

But what the Democrats were truly wringing their hands over was a stark reality: they didn’t want to have to vote on aid to Israel. Why? Because they are farther out of step with their constituents on policy toward Palestine than they are on any other issue. 

While they remain concerned about the reaction of donors to voting against aid to Israel, they know that their constituents are tired of seeing their tax dollars being sent to finance genocide, ethnic cleansing, military occupation, and other crimes of war. 

So, House Democrats are frightened of what their voters will say if they vote against the Massie amendment. That is a very unfamiliar position for mainstream Democrats to find themselves in. 

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Consider the words of Pete Aguilar, one of the most powerful Democrats in the House and a staunch supporter of Israel. 

“Whether you are supportive or in opposition to the Massie amendment, that doesn’t mean that we feel everything is going well in that region, and that doesn’t mean that Netanyahu has a blank check. It also doesn’t mean that our aid and support will go on forever, and we will continue to work through that.”

Aguilar, without question, opposes the Massie amendment and fully supports aid to Israel. He has long been an AIPAC favorite. Yet even he doesn’t feel comfortable giving Israel a fully clean report card. If he is willing to qualify his rhetorical support for Israel in this way, it is a strong indication that even he is feeling heat on the issue.

Lois Frankel, also a pro-Israel Democrat from Florida, said, “If you’re going to recalibrate our relationship with any foreign country, it shouldn’t be done just with an amendment in an appropriations bill. It has to be a very, I think, good, extensive conversation that would bring in a lot of different people.”

Much like Aguilar, that’s a remarkable statement for Frankel. There is no mention of “our great ally, Israel” or words to that effect. She could be talking about any other country. 

Some were slightly more direct, like Greg Meeks of New York, the Ranking Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee: “I know there is still danger [in Israel]. I don’t want Israel to be without what they need…There’s just too many factors to say … ‘We’re taking away $3.3 billion’…“I don’t think that it would be the wise thing … not good policy.”

Playing with the rules to help Israel

Although this amendment was brought by a Republican, the rest of Massie’s party remains safe in voting in support of arming Israel to the teeth. That’s why Democrats are correctly reading this as a “gotcha” decision by the Rules Committee. It’s being brought to a vote to complicate life for Democrats, knowing it has no chance of passing and will likely fall short of the support needed to make the vote close. But it will force Democrats to go on the record about Israel and bring this issue highlighting the split between Democratic donors and voters to the fore.

That strategy is apparent when we look at some of the amendments that the Rules Committee declared “out of order,” meaning they are dead without ever being considered by the House.

One of those amendments was also brought by Massie, along with Democrat Ro Khanna. That proposal would have stripped Section 219 (formerly Section 224), which is the attempt to entangle American and Israeli militaries and effectively give Israel a permanent seat at the American military strategy table, greatly enhancing not only collaboration but also sharing of intelligence and technology. 

Massie responded to the decision, saying, “If Section 219 is signed into law, the American people should see it as Congress fully capitulating our nation’s autonomy to foreign influence.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also submitted eleven amendments to the State Department Appropriations bill. All eleven were ruled “out of order.” Most of AOC’s proposals dealt with Latin America or Puerto Rico, one with Bangladesh. 

But one other amendment was crafted to make grants and sales of weaponry to Israel much more difficult. It would have required the president to certify that any country receiving such weaponry is only using it in compliance with international law. The measure would also have required the president to certify that the country in question was not impeding humanitarian assistance. After such certification, Congress would then have to pass a bill authorizing each transfer of weapons. 

It sounds like more bureaucracy, especially since U.S. law already prohibits any military assistance to countries that don’t meet those standards. But in practice, Israel simply gets its grants every year, the president sends the weapons, and Congress rubber stamps it when it comes up, because the default is that the sales and grants to “our great ally” Israel are assumed to be in compliance. AOC’s amendment would shift the burden, requiring that Israel’s compliance be established before weapons are transferred. 

AOC’s proposal would politicize and publicize the process. While it wouldn’t absolutely stop the sales and grants, it would give advocates working to shut off the flow of arms to Israel the opening they need to counter them, through public discourse, and by working in the White House and on Capitol Hill. 

It would have been effective, and, had it come to the floor, it would have presented both Democrats and those few House Republicans whose constituents want to see the flow of arms to Israel ended, with a real dilemma. Many would have surely felt forced to vote in favor of the amendment. Not enough to pass it perhaps, but enough to send alarm bells through the halls of AIPAC and every congressional office that works with them. 

But it will not see the light of day, and that is precisely because it is an entirely reasonable amendment that most Democrat and Independent voters, and some Republicans as well, would support. The same can be said of the Khanna-Massie amendment.

That’s the power of holding the House majority, even if only by a thin margin. In the past, when it came to Palestine and Israel, it didn’t matter which party was in power; the blank check for Israel would continue regardless.

That is changing, and the recent elections show it. The battle is far from won, but Democrats are no longer comfortable voting for aid to Israel. They are now seeing that it can cost them elections, something they had not considered possible before. 

Much more is needed. But the political winds have already shifted enough that a progressive like Greg Casar, who has not been among the boldest on the question of Palestine, says of the Massie bill, “I am aware that the (Massie) amendment as written may cut off both military weapons (~$3.3 billion) and some diplomatic funding (~$50 million). While I would prefer to vote on an amendment that stripped just military funding, I think opposing the billions in military funding is what’s most important here.”

Although only Casar and AOC have publicly announced their support for the Massie amendment, it is likely that more Democrats will join them. How many do so will matter, because if there is a significant number at all, it will send a message to AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups about just how shaky their position is. And that position is sure to be even weaker in the next Congress. 

It will not be enough to simply see a Democratic majority. But there has never been a time when lobbying for Palestinian rights and for a sharp change in policy toward Israel has been so organized, widespread, and impactful. That lobbying work can make it exceedingly uncomfortable for Democrats to allow the flow of weapons to Israel to continue. 

Pro-Israel lobbying is still very well-financed and benefits from long experience and relationships in Washington. As such, AIPAC and friends will still be a formidable presence. 

But the playing field is more competitive than ever, and Israel is a far tougher sell than it has ever been before. The results are already becoming apparent, and the path toward a different policy toward Palestine and Israel has never been so open. 

Mitchell Plitnick
Mitchell Plitnick is the president of ReThinking Foreign Policy. He is the co-author of Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics and maintains the Cutting Through newsletter.