Senate Shoots Down Bernie's Attempted Arms Embargo on Israel

Senate Democrats failed on Wednesday to implement an arms embargo on Israel, with the upper chamber swatting away three measures led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.).

Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly against three separate disapproval resolutions that called for an immediate pause on American arms sales to Israel and accused the United States of supporting mass war crimes in the Gaza Strip. While Sanders received support from some leading Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), Republicans and other Democrats rejected the measures. 

A Sanders-led resolution to block tank cartridges from Israel, for example, failed by a 79 to 18 margin, with the following Democrats voting in favor: Sanders, Warren, Illinois's Dick Durbin, Virginia's Tim Kaine, Maryland's Chris Van Hollen, Oregon's Jeff Merkley, Vermont's Peter Welch, Georgia's Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, Connecticut's Chris Murphy, Minnesota's Tina Smith, New Hampshire's Jeanne Shaheen, New Mexico's Ben Ray Lujan and Martin Heinrich, Hawaii's Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz, Massachusetts's Ed Markey, and Maine's Angus King. Sanders's other resolutions, which targeted mortar rounds and smart bombs, failed by similar margins.

Sanders and a cohort of his Democratic colleagues—Van Hollen, Merkley (D., Ore.), and Welch (D., Vt.)—launched the eleventh-hour attempt to kneecap Israel on Tuesday, though the effort was largely symbolic. The anti-Israel coalition emphasizes the growing fissures in the Democratic Party over support for Israel and its war to eliminate terrorists.

The Arms Control Export Act, which governs foreign arms sales, gives Congress a mechanism to block arms sales if both the House and Senate pass disapproval resolutions. In the case of Sanders's resolution, however, the deadline to do so had passed.

Sanders railed against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a floor speech in support of his arms embargo, saying the foreign leader’s "extremist government has not simply waged war against Hamas; it has waged an all out war against the Palestinian people."

Merkley, who has repeatedly positioned himself as a stalwart defender of Israel, said an arms embargo is necessary to pressure Netanyahu’s government into injecting increased aid into Gaza. Hamas routinely steals such aid.

"The actions of the Netanyahu government are burning through a massive revenue of goodwill" fostered after the Oct. 7 attacks, the senator said. "We should not continue to provide the munitions we are voting on today. We cannot remain silent in the face of Netanyahu’s strategy."

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D., Nev.) condemned Democrats who support an arms embargo, saying they are using it as a means to undermine Netanyahu's conservative government.

"Restricting much needed arms to Israel because you don’t agree with everything the current government is doing will leave our ally vulnerable," she said, adding that "the message to terrorists will be they can continue to act with abandon." Support for Israel, she added, "must be ironclad" no matter who controls the government there.

Sanders, meanwhile, touted support for his effort from anti-Israel group J Street, which urged lawmakers on Tuesday to back an arms embargo.

"It's not just history that will hold Senators to account, those with further electoral ambitions will have to answer to voters in years to come whether they demonstrated the backbone to stand up and call out this horrific situation," J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami wrote on his Substack. "History will not be kind to those who step back when the moment demands a clear and powerful statement of disapproval of how this war has been conducted and of horror at the death, destruction, and humanitarian disaster that has been created."

In the hours before the vote, the Biden-Harris administration vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The controversial measure did not call on Hamas to release all remaining hostages as a condition for peace, sparking the United States to vote against it.

"We could not support an unconditional ceasefire that failed to release the hostages," Robert Wood, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said during the vote.

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