Calls for ‘conditions’ in aid to Israel add to Democrats’ divisions

The battle among Democrats over U.S. policy on Israel has found a new front this month in the form of liberal calls to set “conditions” on any new military aid delivered to Tel Aviv. 

A number of leading progressives in both the House and Senate have warned in recent days that they would oppose any aid package that fails to apply new limits on Israel’s forceful engagement with Palestinians in the wake of Hamas’s brutal attacks on Israeli civilians last month, including strikes in Gaza that have killed thousands more Palestinian civilians.

Behind Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the liberal critics of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tactics want to withhold new aid to his government unless it agrees to new constraints designed to minimize those civilian casualties. 

“The blank check approach must end,” Sanders wrote in a New York Times op-ed published Wednesday. “The United States must make clear that while we are friends of Israel, there are conditions to that friendship and that we cannot be complicit in actions that violate international law and our own sense of decency.”

The demands have sparked a backlash from some of Capitol Hill’s most ardent pro-Israel Democrats, who are lashing out at the pro-Palestinian bloc with warnings that restricting Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks would only empower Hamas, which the United States deems a terrorist group, and heighten the threat it poses to Israel. 

“Neither Palestinians nor Israelis will know peace so long as Hamas holds hostages, controls Gaza, and retains its ability to attack Israelis,” Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), a staunch Israel supporter, said over the weekend. “Conditioning aid to Israel will move peace further away, threatening both Israeli and Palestinian lives rather than saving them.” 

The internal clash has highlighted the long-standing Democratic divisions when it comes to the decades-old Israel-Palestine conflict, creating fresh challenges for party leaders, including President Biden, who are backing Israel’s forceful response while also scrambling to placate the liberal critics — a key branch of the party’s base — who are accusing Israel of committing human rights crimes in Gaza.

Those ruptures have been on full display within the House Democratic Caucus since Oct. 7, arising during a pair of votes to affirm Congress’s support for Israel — both rhetorically and financially — and later in another series of votes that ended in the formal censure of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), one of just three Muslims in Congress and the only Palestinian American, for her sharp criticisms of Israel. 

The tense debate is sure to resurface in the coming weeks when Democratic leaders are hoping to approve Biden’s $14.3 billion request for Israel aid — part of a much broader proposal that also features military funding for Ukraine and humanitarian assistance in Gaza — in the short window that remains before year’s end. 

Sanders, a liberal icon with an army of followers, foreshadowed the tough battle to come when he issued a statement over the weekend outlining the stipulations needed to win his support for more Israel aid. 

His six-point plan calls for an immediate end to what he considers “indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza that’s resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians; a “significant pause” in Israel’s military operations to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid; affirmation that displaced Gazan families will retain the right to return to their homes; assurances that Israel will neither continue its blockade on Gaza, nor occupy the region long-term, when the hostilities end; a prohibition on the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank; and a commitment to earnest peace talks designed to clinch an elusive two-state solution. 

“The Netanyahu government, or hopefully a new Israeli government, must understand that not one penny will be coming to Israel from the U.S. unless there is a fundamental change in their military and political positions,” Sanders said in the statement.

He is hardly alone. Alongside Tlaib, a number of House liberals — many of them representing the far-left “squad” — have also been highly critical of Israel’s historic policies toward Palestinians broadly and Netanyahu’s handling of the current military operations in Gaza in particular. 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) argued that the United States applies conditions to “virtually all other … allies,” and doing the same toward Israel is simply “the responsible course” to ensure that American taxpayers aren’t financing human rights abuses. 

“The United States has a legal and moral responsibility to ensure that public resources do not facilitate gross violations of human rights and international law,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. 

Israel’s most vocal Democratic defenders have different ideas. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (Fla.), a first-term lawmaker, denounced the conditional approach, vowing to block any such provisions from an Israel aid package if they were under consideration in the House. 

“I am absolutely for humanitarian aid to Gaza,” Moskowitz wrote on X. “But if Bernie Sanders puts political requirements on the Aid to Israel, I will work in the House to remove those conditions or condition Aid to Gaza that requires the removal of Hamas.” 

The Democratic collision over Israel reflects the broader debate around the country, pitting those supporting Israel’s military strategy, in the name of self-defense and self-preservation, against those critical of Tel Aviv’s human rights record in Gaza and the West Bank. 

That debate has grown more fierce as both the country and Congress have grown more diverse. Some lawmakers said it’s only natural that the conversation would change with the arrival of new members with distinctive backgrounds and unique perspectives. 

“We’ve never had this before,” said Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), a member of the squad. “We’ve never had three Muslims before, two Muslim women before. So if we’ve never had that … it’s going to be very contentious and difficult and challenging to understand each other on Day One. 

“My hope is that on Day 1,000 there is a collective understanding and we begin to have conversations that center on empathy and compassion and humanity — for all people. And we don’t have that right now. It’s pro-Israel, and that’s it,” he continued. “We don’t even talk about the occupation, the conditions in Gaza, the 50 percent poverty, the 50 percent children, a siege happening when the language that’s being used is clearly to dehumanize, conflating Hamas with Palestinian. 

“That’s what’s happening — from the White House on down.”

Across the aisle, Republicans are largely united in their support for Israel aid, though there are disagreements within the GOP over whether the new funding should be accompanied by other budget changes designed to defray the costs. 

Newly installed Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), as his first legislative act with the gavel, passed a $14.3 billion Israel package earlier in the month, which also featured steep cuts in IRS funding to satisfy conservatives — an addendum that added billions of dollars to deficit spending and eroded almost all support from Democrats. 

The next steps on Israel aid are expected to begin in the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats who oppose any offsets to emergency spending bills. It remains unclear how, or if, Johnson would bring such a bill to the House floor and risk a conservative revolt.