Effort to halt latest transfer of arms to Israel defeated in US Senate
The US Senate on Wednesday green-lit the Pentagon's request to send $20bn in new, offensive weapons to Israel, by defeating a Bernie Sanders-led effort to halt the transfer via a tool called the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval, or JRD.
Among the weapons approved were 120mm tank rounds, high explosive mortar rounds, and joint direct attack munitions, known as JDAMs, which are precision systems for otherwise indiscriminate or "dumb" bombs.
Three separate resolutions were brought forward for each weapon, including its cost to US taxpayers. The most expensive are the tank rounds, at approximately $774m. Most of the weapons will be delivered in 2026 or later, except for the JDAMs, which are set to be shipped imminently.
Eighteen senators backed the vote to withhold the tank ammunition, and 19 voted to withhold the mortar rounds. 17 voted to suspend the delivery of the JDAMs.
There are a total of one hundred senators in Congress’ upper chamber. Senators are permitted to vote "present" instead of an affirmative or negative if they wish. Vice President-elect JD Vance, who is still the senator from Ohio until he is inaugurated on January 20, did not vote at all.
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While the move was largely symbolic, the vote was likely the last chance several lawmakers had to go on record about Israeli human rights violations before the end of Joe Biden's presidency.
Along with Senator Sanders and Peter Welch, both of Vermont, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Brian Schatz of Hawaii led the resolutions. Sanders is an Independent who typically votes alongside Democrats, while the rest identify as Democrats.
Voting alongside them were notable senior Democrats, including former Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine of Virginia and former presidential primary contender Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
One of the surprising votes of the night came from Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, who is the Senate Majority Whip, making him the second most senior Democrat in the Senate. Other less expected votes came from both of the self-styled progressive senators from Georgia: Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Ossoff backed the Sanders initiative, except on the JDAMs.
As the nation’s purse, Congress regulates the sale and export of weapons through the Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act. By law, it cannot transfer weapons to governments or entities committing human rights violations.
But Washington has made its ally, Israel, the exception for years now.
Sanders wanted to change that.
In the leadup to the vote, he made it clear that he believes the US is complicit in the deaths of nearly 44,000 Palestinians in Gaza, because of its unconditional weapons transfers to Israel.
“The United States government is currently in violation of the law,” Sanders told reporters on Tuesday. “The entire population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying. Dying from disease, famine and violence… But what makes it even more painful is that much of what is happening there has been done with US weapons and with American taxpayer support.”
In a statement, Kaine said there must be a distinction in the types of weapons Israel receives.
“Since February, I have argued that the United States must prioritise the transfer of defensive weapons - such as those used to defeat drone and missile attacks - to Israel instead of offensive weapons that cause severe civilian harm in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon,” he said. “Continued offensive weapons transfers will worsen the current crisis and add more fuel to the fire of regional instability.”
According to the Costs of War project at Brown University, the US has provided Israel with $22.76bn from 7 October 2023 until 30 September 2024.
Small victory
While a supermajority of the Senate shot down the effort to curb weapons shipments to Israel, some saw the votes themselves - and the fact that nearly twenty senators stepped up to support them - as a win.
Matt Duss, the former foreign policy advisor to Sanders and now Executive Vice President of the Center for International Policy (CEIP), commended his former boss in a statement late on Wednesday.
"Coming on the same day that international relief agencies reported that virtually no humanitarian aid has entered Gaza in 40 days, the resolutions introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders would have had the effect of beginning to enforce the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act, which prohibits US security assistance to recipient countries that restrict such aid."
"Today's votes," he added, "are a stark rejection of the Biden administration's repeated refusal to uphold this and other US arms laws."
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC), which had signed onto a letter urging lawmakers to support the Sanders effort, called Wednesday's results "a big deal."
"There is still a lot of work to do," the organisation said in a post on X. "There would have been no vote – and no dissent in the Senate – without the continued activism of a large pro-peace coalition demanding an end to the war in Gaza and in Lebanon and opposing its expansion to Iran. This activism must build on the progress made today."
The Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) called the votes "historic," and "a testament to the growing courage within Congress to challenge the destructive status quo".
"This vote is only the beginning, and we will continue to demand accountability and a foreign policy rooted in respect for the law, human rights and dignity," the statement said.
White House pushback
Hours ahead of the votes, reports in The Times of Israel and The Huffington Post revealed the White House had circulated talking points among Democratic senators, in a bid to prevent them from voting to block the arms sales. The Biden administration reportedly indicated that lawmakers who back the vote are supporting Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Maryland Senator Ben Cardin confirmed the receipt of those talking points from the White House during the floor debate on Wednesday evening, when he said he stands by the administration's position.
But why would the White House use language this strong and invest in a pushback effort when the vote was all but guaranteed to fail anyway?
“I think the growing momentum indicates that there is more and more dissent growing as the devastation in Gaza has become more apparent, and the failure of the Biden administration to do anything about it has also become more clear,” John Chappell, who leads US advocacy for the Center for Civilians in Conflict, told Middle East Eye.
'Flexing their muscles on Israel at this juncture... is probably not very wise'
- Debra Cagan, former State Department official
“I think that they're worried. I think that you would not see Aipac running ads in 17 states… if they were not worried,” he added, referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Israel lobbying group.
The White House’s pushback, according to reporting in The Huffington Post, is said to have been spearheaded by Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat and a staunch advocate for Israel.
But Schumer’s push caught some off guard. In the weeks leading up to the vote, Schumer’s staff held a meeting with some representatives from among the nearly 100 anti-war advocacy groups who signed a public letter supporting the vote, a person familiar with the meeting's talking points told MEE.
The senator’s office even assured the groups that bringing the vote to the floor was a valid undertaking and indicated that Schumer wouldn’t stand in the way, according to the source who wished to remain anonymous.
Though what exactly that meant is now harder to discern, and may simply have been in reference to permitting the vote to take place at all.
The individual described Schumer’s reported actions as “disappointing”. The senator, as expected, voted down the resolutions to block the weapons sales.
‘This is a stunt’
Others effectively dismissed the vote as a waste of time because it targeted just one party in the war.
“I think what the White House is doing is saying, ‘Look, this is ridiculous,’ - and Bernie Sanders is largely ridiculous - ‘You can't play this game, especially with Hezbollah accidentally on purpose striking Unifil',” Debra Cagan, who spent three decades in the State Department and served as an advisor to former president George W Bush, told MEE.
Unifil is the United Nations peacekeeping force that has been assigned to the Lebanon-Israel border since 2006. Its soldiers and facilities have been struck multiple times, but Unifil has only described some attacks as being from likely “non-state actors”. Most have been blamed on Israel.
On Wednesday, the Biden administration’s special envoy, Amos Hochstein, said a ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel is the closest it has ever been to fruition.
To try and restrict arms sales to Israel now, Cagan said, compromises the leverage for negotiations and, more importantly, she added, would give Iran the upper hand.
“This is a stunt, and it's an embarrassing stunt,” Cagan said.
“I think there's going to be a number of senators who want to sort of flex their muscles before [President-elect Donald] Trump comes in. That's to be expected.”
"Flexing their muscles on Israel at this juncture with what is going on in these routine attacks is probably not very wise,” she added.
No Joint Resolutions of Disapproval have ever been successful in halting a weapons transfer from the US to a foreign country.
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