Senate rejects Bernie Sanders’ effort to block arms sales to Israel 

The Senate overwhelmingly rejected three disapproval resolutions filed by Sen Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday aimed at blocking arms sales to Israel. 

Sanders, 83, had sought to block a $20 billion arms deal sending US military tank rounds, mortar rounds and joint direct attack munitions (JDAMS) to the Jewish state over what he described as “unacceptable civilian death and harm” in Gaza. 

The deal had already been authorized by Congress and the vote was expected to fail, but it also served as a test to measure Democratic support in the upper chamber for the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of Israel’s war against Hamas. 

Nineteen senators — 17 Democrats and two independents — voted in favor of at least one of the three disapproval resolutions, including Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM),  Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Tina Smith (D-Minn.) Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), George Helmy (D-NJ), Angus King (I-Maine) and Sanders. 

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) voted “present.” Vice President-elect JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) did not vote. 

Ahead of the vote, Sanders accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of waging an “all-out war against the Palestinian people” and “not simply” against the Hamas terror group. 

The progressive senator further charged that Netanyahu, 75, has “violated international and US law,” arguing that it is “illegal for our government to provide him with more offensive weaponry.” 

Sanders filed the resolutions after a 30-day deadline, imposed by the Biden-Harris administration, for Netanyahu to improve its treatment of Palestinian civilians in Gaza passed with the Israeli government falling short of demands for more humanitarian aid to be let into Gaza, according to leading global aid organizations. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin strongly opposed the resolutions.

“Israel needs to protect itself not just today, but also tomorrow and next year and beyond,” Schumer said. “It has been a cornerstone of American policy to give Israel the resources it needs to defend against its enemies. We should not stray from that policy today.”

Cardin argued that blocking arms sales to Israel would “put wind in the sails of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas at the worst possible moment.” 

Several Republicans slammed Sanders’ effort, including Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who called the move “absolutely shameful and morally bankrupt.”

“Hamas invaded Israel and murdered the most Jews since the Holocaust. Israel is fighting for its survival against Iran’s terror proxies. Bernie Sanders response? An arms embargo *against Israel,*” Cotton wrote on X.

Sen. Lindsey Graham warned that if the resolutions passed it would signal to “the enemies of Israel, and the enemies of peace, that if they just stick with it they will win.” 

The Republican Jewish Coalition, a prominent pro-Israel group, slammed the effort to block the arms deal as a “dangerous new low for anti-Israel Democrats in the US Senate.”

The group said “history will judge” the 18 senators who supported the effort “and their apologists harshly.”