Senate Dems stew over Biden’s military sale to Israel

A small group of Senate Democrats is calling on the Biden administration to hold back a military sale to Israel so it could be leveraged to influence the conduct of the war in the Gaza Strip and Israel’s policies toward Palestinians. 

The sale includes about 50 F-15 fighter jets, air-to-air missiles and Joint Direct Attack Munition kits that transform unguided explosives to precision bombs. A decision this week by the top Democrats on Congress’s foreign affairs committees has allowed the Biden administration to move forward with the sale.  

“I continue to believe that the Biden administration should pause the transfer of offensive weapons until the Netanyahu government meets the Biden administration’s objectives in a number of areas,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told The Hill. 

Van Hollen is at the forefront of more than a dozen Senate Democrats, moderates and progressives who have sought to pressure President Biden to take a harder line with Israel over its war conduct in Gaza and policies in the West Bank, and to hold back U.S. offensive weapons deliveries as leverage to realize change. 

Members of this group have also not fully committed to attend a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expected to take place in Congress July 24, underscoring fraught divisions within the Democratic Party on U.S. relations with Israel. 

“I think it was a mistake to invite him. I will make a decision later on,” Van Hollen said.

In February, a group of 19 senators, with Van Hollen at the helm, succeeded in getting Biden to issue National Security Memorandum 20, an executive order that served to scrutinize Israel’s war conduct in Gaza and raised the possibility of banning weapons deliveries if it was determined that Israel violated international humanitarian law.

The administration said in May that Israel “likely” used U.S. weapons in violations of international law in its military operations in Gaza, but it held back from imposing a weapons embargo.

“I don’t think the administration made the right decision in their interpretation of the National Security Memorandum,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Middle East, told The Hill on Tuesday. 

“I don’t think there is evidence to suggest that Israel has been in compliance with that memorandum. My belief is that the administration should be using all the leverage it has, including weapon sales, in order to bring this conflict to a close.”

Murphy also didn’t commit to attending Netanyahu’s speech in July. 

The Biden administration is expected to deliver a formal notification to Congress about the military sale for Israel. If the sale is approved and finalized by Israel’s Ministry of Defense, deliveries of — at least the F-15s — would likely begin in mid- to late 2029, according to sources familiar with the sale. 

Approximately three to four aircraft would be delivered each year over the next 10 to 12 years. 

But Democratic senators critical of Israel’s war conduct said the Biden administration still has time to use this military sales package as leverage to influence the immediate situation on the ground. 

“Ultimately this is the Biden administration’s decision. … I would just urge them to pause that request until the Netanyahu government meets the objectives that President Biden himself has outlined,” Van Hollen said. 

This includes Israel facilitating increased humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza, holding back from carrying out a large-scale military offensive on the southern Gazan city of Rafah, cracking down on illegal Israeli settlement outposts in the West Bank, and releasing collected Palestinian tax revenue to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. 

“So it seems to me, again, with respect to offensive weapons — not Iron Dome, not air defense — that the administration should get very clear assurances that these issues that the president has outlined will be addressed,” Van Hollen continued.

Eric Harris, a spokesperson for Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), said that any issues or concerns the chair had over the military sale to Israel “were addressed through our ongoing consultations with the administration, and that’s why he felt it appropriate to allow this case to move forward.”

As chair of the committee, Cardin has the power to block U.S. military sales. The Washington Post on Monday reported that Cardin, and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) had both released their holds on the sale.

Cardin has called on Israel to do more to increase humanitarian aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip, but he has put his advocacy behind the Biden administration’s push for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

The cease-fire proposal, which is still in negotiations, would require Hamas to release approximately 120 Israeli hostages kidnapped during its terrorist attack on Oct. 7. The cease-fire would allow for a scale-up of humanitarian deliveries and distribution for nearly the entire population of 2 million Palestinians who are suffering amid the more than eight-month war. 

“I applaud the efforts by President Biden and Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken for their efforts to help negotiate a cease-fire and hostage release, which would allow for greater access for humanitarian assistance and a pathway for peace between the Palestinians and Israelis,” Cardin said during a roundtable with reporters last week. 

“And let me just put this in perspective. As the president has said, and as Secretary Blinken has said, it’s Hamas that is preventing this from going forward.” 

Supporters of the military sale to Israel say it is important in context that it addresses larger Israeli and American security interests in the region, and they say it also serves as an important signal of pressure on Hamas to agree to a cease-fire by demonstrating U.S. and Israeli solidarity.  

“Closing the daylight between the U.S. and Israel, continuing to show full-throated support for Israel’s security, that puts more pressure on [Hamas military chief in Gaza] Yahya Sinwar, which is where the pressure is needed,” said Jonathan Lord, a former professional staff member for the House Armed Services Committee and currently a senior fellow and director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. 

But not all Democrats in the Senate want to absolve Netanyahu from responsibility for the toll of destruction in the Gaza Strip. 

Gaza health authorities, under the control of Hamas, claim about 37,000 casualties from Israel’s war against Hamas — but it does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. Israel claims that it has eliminated 15,000 to 17,000 Hamas fighters. 

“Benjamin Netanyahu has created a humanitarian disaster. The United States needs to be using its leverage, including restrictions on arm sales, as a way to advance a push toward peace in the Middle East,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told The Hill. 

“We need a cease-fire, massive humanitarian relief, the return of the hostages, and we’ve gotta have a breakthrough on getting the parties to the negotiating table. Giving more arms to Israel is not pushing in the right direction,” Warren continued, confirming she would not attend Netanyahu’s speech. 

Likewise, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who supported the creation of National Security Memorandum 20, called for Biden to hold back the military sale. 

Schatz also didn’t commit to attending Netanyahu’s speech when approached by The Hill on Tuesday. 

“I don’t think we should approve the sale; I don’t think keeping the supply line hot is a good enough reason to do that,” Schatz told The Hill. 

“These things are designed as a matter of statutory law to be a lever for foreign policy, and we should use our leverage here to get the outcome we want.”