Congressional Democrats Cave, Give Biden Weapons For Israel After All

Half the members who signed a letter to Biden in the aftermath of aid worker killings voted for the package anyway.

by Blaise Malley, Responsible Statecraft

The Senate approved the national security supplemental on Tuesday night, by a vote of 79-18.

The legislation combined the four bills that were approved by the House over the weekend. After months of pushing the Biden administration to do more to pressure Israel to change its conduct in its war in Gaza, Democrats in Congress ultimately approved $26 billion in aid for Israel, including approximately $9 billion in global humanitarian aid (how much would go to Gaza, to be determined).

In the Senate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT.) tried to introduce two amendments — one that would remove all offensive military aid for Israel and another to restore U.S. funding for UNRWA. “What we are doing today is aiding and abetting the destruction of the Palestinian people,” he said on the Senate floor Tuesday night.

Members of the 115th congress and their familes mingle on the house floor while attending the joint session on the opening day of the current session.

No Democrats, including some who have raised concerns about Israel’s war, supported Sanders’s effort, saying that they wanted the package to move forward without delay.

In the lead-up to the votes, pushback was more prevalent in the House. Perhaps most notably, on April 5, 39 voting congressional Democrats circulated a letter that urged President Joe Biden to stop sending offensive arms to Israel until an investigation into the strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen staffers was completed.