Progressive Efforts to Block U.S. Bombs to Israel Continue

Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Mark Pocan are leading a renewed effort to prohibit the delivery of US-made bombs to Israel.

The three progressive legislators submitted an amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would require the Biden administration to halt the export of Boeing-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions and Small Diameter Bombs to Israel for a year. The bombs were used by the Israeli Air Force to strike targets in Gaza during May’s escalation in violence.

Given the overwhelming support Israel enjoys in Congress, it’s unlikely the amendment, published Tuesday on the House Rules Committee website, will make it into the final draft of the NDAA, which provides funding to the Defense Department. To do so, it would have to survive the House Rules Committee, which determines which amendments can be included as part of the NDAA.

“We don’t expect the amendment to [survive]. We’ve been talking for months about AOC doing this, but it was always going to be a messaging opportunity, to bring attention to this issue,” said one progressive activist familiar with the NDAA who requested anonymity to give a frank assessment of the amendment’s chance of passage. Still, the strategist said the effort was nonetheless “significant” because of “the need to center human rights in US foreign policy, including in the US relationship to Israel.” Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s office declined to comment for this story.