Senate Kills Measure to Scrutinize Israeli Human Rights Record as Condition for Aid
Sen. Bernie Sanders forced a vote on the resolution, which would have opened the door for Congress to freeze U.S. aid to Israel.
Prem Thakker January 16 2024, 8:54 p.m.
On Tuesday, the Senate voted down a resolution that would have set the stage for Congress to place conditions on U.S. military aid to Israel — quashing what has so far been the most serious effort on Capitol Hill to hold the U.S. ally to account for its brutal assault on Gaza.
Introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in December, the resolution would have required the State Department to submit a report to Congress about allegations of Israel committing human rights violations, and whether and how the U.S. played a role and responded to such acts. If the bill had passed and the State Department failed to submit the report within 30 days, U.S. aid to Israel would have been frozen. If the State Department had submitted a report to Congress, however, U.S. aid to Israel could have come to a vote, giving Congress the option to condition, restrict, or terminate security assistance to Israel (or to do nothing at all). Such votes would have required only a simple majority for passage.
When it came to a vote Tuesday evening, the Senate voted 72-11 to table the resolution, effectively killing it.
“It’s frankly historic that this vote took place at all,” said Andrew O’Neill, the legislative director for the political advocacy group Indivisible. “The number of senators willing to take a vote like this even weeks ago, on the face of it, would have been zero.” DEIR AL-BALAH, GAZA - NOVEMBER 7: Civil defense teams and citizens continue search and rescue operations after an airstrike hits the building belonging to the Maslah family during the 32nd day of Israeli attacks in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza on November 7, 2023. (Photo by Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Read our complete coverage Israel’s War on Gaza
Israel receives billions of dollars per year in U.S. aid, making it the largest recipient of American security assistance in the world. In the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, President Joe Biden asked Congress to approve an additional $14 billion in aid to the country, whose retaliatory war on Gaza has killed more than 24,000 Palestinians.
Sanders’s resolution was based on the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits the American government from providing security assistance to any government “which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” Section 502B© of the law empowers Congress to request information on a country’s human rights practices, which Sanders took advantage of to force this vote.
“The Senators who lent their support to this resolution did so in spite of enormous political pressure,” O’Neill said, noting that, for decades, there has been a bipartisan status quo of not scrutinizing assistance to Israel. “The 502B process had never been used before, and now that tool is on the table. These are lonely votes, but votes that can be the start of something bigger.”
The votes in support for Sanders’s resolution came almost entirely from Democratic senators: Laphonza Butler of California, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, and Peter Welch of Vermont. Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote against tabling the resolution.
Van Hollen told The Intercept that it’s important for the Senate to get the information required by the proposed report. “That’s important for transparency and I think taxpayers have a right to know how their funds are being used.”
Speaking with reporters ahead of the vote, Warren said, “Prime Minister Netanyahu needs to understand that he does not get a blank check from the United States Congress.”
She continued: “The Senate has had a role in overseeing our military involvement overseas running back to the drafting of the Constitution. We have a responsibility to stand up now and say that given how Netanyahu and his right-wing war cabinet have prosecuted this war, we have serious questions that we are obligated to ask before we go further.” Most Read OpenAI Quietly Deletes Ban on Using ChatGPT for “Military and Warfare” Sam Biddle At The Hague, Israel Mounted a Defense Based in an Alternate Reality Jeremy Scahill In Genocide Case Against Israel at The Hague, the U.S. Is the Unnamed Co-Conspirator Jeremy Scahill
Some Democratic senators who voted to kill the resolution told The Intercept they were concerned about Israeli human rights abuses, but they did not think Sanders’s proposal was the way to address them. Others, mostly Republicans, deflected from questions about Israel’s conduct during the war.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said he was opposed to the resolution because the timeline for potential congressional action would have conflicted with the aims of Israel’s war. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to be conditioning a military campaign engaged in by an ally,” he said. He added that “there’s no question if there are allegations, they will be the subject of scrutiny and review,” but said he doesn’t think the resolution is the right approach.
Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., explained his opposition to the resolution by pointing out that 502B© has never been used in its 50-year history, and that he prefers a measureOpens in a new tab introduced by Van Hollen. That amendment would require weapons received by any country under Biden’s proposal for supplemental aid to Israel and Ukraine to be used in accordance with U.S. law, international humanitarian law, and the law of armed conflict.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who has a record of scrutinizing human rights abuses by U.S. allies, voted against the resolution. He told The Intercept that he supports Israel’s right to defend itself and that he has deep reservations about the way it has conducted its campaign, but he doesn’t support measures “potentially designed to cut off funding for Israel.” The resolution, he said, is a vehicle toward completely cutting off aid to Israel. “I don’t think that’s the right move for Congress at this time,” he said.
Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., told The Intercept that he is “sensitive” to the allegations of human rights abuses by Israel, and that he understands Sanders’s sensitivity to “trying to keep the collateral damage down, and I think everybody would be for that.” Still, he said, he opposed the resolution “because I think it then draws attention away from how it started, and how it has to be litigated, and that’s not easy,” referring to Hamas’s attack on October 7 and Israel’s stated aim of rooting out the organization.
Asked if he thought Israel was doing enough to mitigate civilian casualties, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told The Intercept that “they need to kill every Hamas member and anybody that dies in Gaza is a result of Hamas.” He voted against the resolution.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., referred to Hamas’s attack on Israel as he explained his opposition to the resolution. “To give them respite would be to allow them to do it again,” he told The Intercept. When asked whether Israel is doing enough to protect civilians, Cassidy repeated a frequent Israeli government talking point about Hamas, saying that “when you build your tunnels with your commanders beneath mosques, hospitals, and schools, then you have created an environment where it’s difficult to prevent civilian injury.”
On his way to vote against the resolution, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told The Intercept that he has been consistent with his position on the issue. “Of course it does,” he said when asked if he’s concerned about the number of casualties in Gaza. Asked if Israel is doing enough to mitigate the casualties, he responded simply: “Good talking to you,” as the Senate elevator doors closed.
Not even remotely surprising. Imagine if China had a CCPPAC American lobbyist group that lobbies aggressively for Chinese Communist Party interests and is one of the biggest players in DC. Unlimited bribe money for politicians.
That’s what AIPAC is. Israel’s lobbyist presence in DC, and they support both parties. The money flows forever as long as you toe the line for Israel no matter what.
And the moment they deem you not deferential enough to the apartheid regime, it flows to your main opponents and ads by AIPAC itself attacking you as an “enemy of Israel” or whatever bullshit they come up with.
Since we are talking about parties, if you check, there were no exceptions from the Republican side, all 11 people who voted with Bernie were Democrats.
Also current aid to Israel is held in the House, because it is tied to Ukraine help. Republicans actually are demanding to split it separately, because they only want to find Israel.
“Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote against tabling the resolution.”
You didn’t even have to open the article man.
Surprisingly, though, 15 abstainees were republicans. I think those are the people who wanted to approve but didn’t want their party to eat them alive. Not trying to defend the GOP, but that detail deserves to be brought up.
So they’re cowards? Not really any better.
Yeah true. Just mentioning that it’s not like Republicans unanimously rejected the proposal, for the sake of intellectual honesty.
TIL that Rand Paul is a Democrat
AIPAC is nowhere near as powerful as you are claiming. 21.6 million in contributions since 1990 and 58.5 million dollars in donations since 1998. That’s absolute peanuts. From 1998 to 2023, about 74.8 billion dollars were spent by various interest groups on federal lobbying in the US. AIPAC constitutes a small fraction of a percent. That is far from unlimited. At most, one might argue that they are using their limited funds effectively.
The actual reason for why American politicians are overwhelmingly pro-Israel is that the two countries have strong economic, military, cultural and scientific ties. It’s a symbiotic relationship that has flourished since the late '60s, after a somewhat rocky start in the 1940s, when on one hand, America was the first to recognize Israel’s statehood, but on the other hand enforced an arms embargo against it (which the young nation had to find creative ways around). It’s no coincidence that Intel’s influential Israeli subsidiary for example was founded in 1974, as the US-Israeli relationship was deepening. Today, the American military is for example using missile defense systems invented in Israel, from the Iron Dome to Trophy.
These objective reasons are important across the political spectrum. The far-right also has an irrational obsession with Israel due to their belief that the end times will start there, but that’s secondary.
Nice human response. AIPAC formed a SuperPAC that obscures how much money they use to bribe American politicians
The outright bribery of public officials is technically legal and basically everyone with wealth and privilege does it.
What’s weird about AIPAC is that an overtly state-sponsored organization is allowed to do so brazenly. There are usually shell companies and plausible deniability involved when state actors bribe US politicians.
After Citizen’s United, that’s just fine, unfortunately. Putin himself could fund the Russia Controls Republicans Super PAC and that would be fine.
“Today, the American military is for example using missile defense systems invented in Israel, from the Iron Dome to Trophy.” I just looked this up and it seems you are right, they created the system of defense but also had over 2 Billion in investment for the system. Would that defense exist without the support given? It’s a complicated issue but the brutal response doesn’t seem appropriate.
Found the shill. I hope AIPAC or whatever other de facto part of the fascist apartheid regime is at least paying you well.
I’d hate for anyone to work that hard at licking fascist boots for free, and every Shekel going to superfluous propagandists like you is a Shekel not going directly to trying to eradicate Palestinians.