Democratic rebels send Biden stern message on Gaza 

CORRECTION: The death toll in Gaza exceeds 24,000 people. An earlier version of this story included incorrect information. 

A group of Senate Democrats voted Tuesday in favor of advancing a resolution sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to potentially freeze U.S. military aid to Israel, sending a pointed message to President Biden that the war in Gaza is becoming a major problem for his party.  

The Senate voted 72 to 11 to table the matter, but the number of Democrats who supported the measure reflects rising dissatisfaction among progressives over the death toll in Gaza, which is now said to exceed 24,000. The total includes militants killed in fighting, though the majority are civilians. 

Liberals are also frustrated over the lack of a clear timeline for ending the war. 

Nine Democrats voted with Sanders, as did Republican Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), a frequent critic of U.S. foreign aid.  

Sanders, the Senate’s leading critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the siege and invasion of Gaza, says it’s “immoral.”  

On Tuesday he pounded his colleagues over the mounting death toll and the extensive use of American-supplied bombs and artillery shells in what had been heavily populated civilian areas.

“Whether we like it or not, the United States is complicit in the nightmare that millions of Palestinians are now experiencing,” he declared on the Senate floor, warning that hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza “are starving right before our eyes.” 

He cited media reports that Israel dropped more than 22,000 American-supplied bombs on Gaza in a six-week span, including 2,000-pound bombs that can destroy entire neighborhoods. 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who voted to advance the resolution, said she wanted to send a message. 

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has to understand that he does not get a blank check from the United States Congress,” she said. “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 in our support.” 

She said while the Biden administration is “pushing” the Netanyahu regime to reduce civilian deaths and ratchet down the intensity of the fighting, “Congress [has] a role here to play as well to make sure that Mr. Netanyahu understands we’re not writing blank checks.”  

The other Democrats who voted for the resolution were Sens. Laphonza Butler (Calif.), Martin Heinrich (N.M.), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii), Ben Ray Luján (N.M.), Ed Markey (Mass.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Chris Van Hollen (Md.) and Peter Welch (Vt.).  

A group of progressive Democrats is also looking at attaching conditions to U.S. military aid to Israel.  

Polls show that Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza has become a growing political liability for his reelection. 

A New York Times/Siena College poll conducted last month showed that 57 percent of registered voters nationwide disapprove of Biden’s response to the conflict, including 37 percent of Democrats. 

Especially concerning for Biden’s political advisers, 72 percent of registered voters aged 18 to 29 — a demographic that voted strongly for Biden in 2020 — disapprove of his performance on the issue.  

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), the chair of the Senate Democrats’ Policy and Communications Committee, acknowledged younger voters are souring on Biden’s Israel policy. 

But she argued that the White House, not Congress, should take the lead in pressing Israel to keep the humanitarian crisis from getting worse.  

“We need to be very careful and thoughtful in working with the administration. I do not in any way support Netanyahu. I think his instincts are very much to overreact,” she said.  

“It’s such a horrible, horrible situation for everyone in terms of loss of life. And I know that President Biden understands that and is doing everything he can to stop it,” she added. 

Stabenow voted to table Sanders’s proposal.  

The resolution would have given the State Department 30 days to provide a report on any human rights violations committed during the invasion of Gaza. If the State Department failed to meet the deadline, assistance to Israel would be frozen.  

The Vermont senator forced a vote to discharge his resolution out of the Foreign Relations Committee by invoking a little-known section of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act.  

The only time the Foreign Relations Committee has demanded a report on the human rights record of a country receiving U.S. aid under the same provision of the Foreign Assistance Act was 1976, according to Sanders’s office.  

The vote was a test for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a staunch ally of Israel, who wanted to minimize Democratic votes for potentially halting aid to Israel, which Republicans are eager to use as political ammunition.  

It’s a highly sensitive issue within the Democratic caucus, triggering strong emotions on both sides of the question.  

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin (D-Md.) warned that mere Senate passage of Sanders’s resolution would immediately threaten U.S. aid to Israel.  

“Make no mistake, our passing the resolution triggers this,” he said on the floor, his voice rising with passion. “If we pass this, the process is triggered to cut off aid to Israel during war.”  

Schumer made no mention of the Sanders resolution in his Tuesday afternoon floor remarks, while Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) denounced the vote as “performative left-wing politics.”  

“It is not about authorizing a report of aid to Israel. It’s not even about human rights. It’s about tying the hands of a close ally locked in a necessary battle against savage terrorists. It’s a gift to the left-wing, anti-Israel activists,” McConnell declared on the floor. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) panned Sanders’s resolution as “the most tone-deaf thing in the history of the Senate.” 

“It ignores the fact that Hamas has tunnels under hospitals, under schools, they use civilians as human shield,” he argued.  

The Senate fight over Israel aid came at a time of growing tension between Biden and Netanyahu over the management of the war. The two leaders haven’t spoken since a tense Dec. 23 call. 

The two leaders didn’t have a great relationship even before the war broke out this fall. Biden waited nine months after Netanyahu’s return to power before inviting him to the White House for a meeting.  

The Biden administration has put pressure on Netanyahu’s government to reduce civilian casualties and to wrap up the heaviest fighting as soon as possible, but to little effect.  

Netanyahu has largely ignored the administration’s calls to reengage with Palestinian leaders once the fighting subsides in pursuit of a two-state solution to achieving lasting peace in the region. American demands to mitigate the suffering of Palestinian officials haven’t had much impact on Israeli tactics, either.  

Netanyahu declared over the weekend that “no one” will stop Israel’s mission to eliminate Hamas, even though some foreign policy experts are skeptical that Israeli forces could fully eliminate Hamas leaders and militants if the conflict lasts months longer.