Senate Dems propose amendment adding conditions to Israel aid

More than a dozen Democratic Senators are working to enact conditions on military assistance to Israel as part of President Biden’s nearly $111 billion national security supplemental request. 

The move is an effort by, largely, progressive Democrats in the Senate to address their alarm over the devastating humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s war against Hamas since its Oct. 7 attack. The death toll among Palestinians is believed to have exceeded 16,000 people, with the majority women and children. 

“It is imperative that all assistance to Israel abide by U.S. and international law, prioritize the protection of civilians, assure the provision of desperately needed humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza, and align with a long-term vision for peace, security, and two-state diplomatic solution,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), one of the amendment sponsors, said in a statement. 

The amendment, sponsored by 13 Senate Democrats, takes aim at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s resistance to allow humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip, with the early days of the operation against Hamas marked by Israel cutting off electricity, fuel, water, food and aid deliveries into the strip. 

The legislation directs the president to report to Congress within 30 days whether countries receiving military aid through this supplemental are “fully cooperating with U.S. efforts and U.S.-supported international efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to civilians.”

While Israel’s border crossings with Gaza are closed, humanitarian aid is traveling through Egypt’s crossing with Gaza. This is done in coordination and with the approval of Israel. At times, it has stalled over security concerns and, in particular, Hamas’s failure to release hostages it kidnapped from Israel and that ended a temporary truce. 

Other provisions of the amendment call for the president to report to Congress that any country using U.S.-funded military equipment is doing so in accordance with “their intended purposes and U.S. end-use monitoring programs; international humanitarian law, the law of armed conflict, and U.S. law; the President’s 2023 Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) Policy and the Defense Department’s Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP).”

Biden’s national security supplemental request earmarks more than $10 billion in defense spending for Israel.

While part of that money goes to replenishing Israel’s missile defense, it also includes $3.5 billion in foreign military financing, to allow Israel’s purchase of weapons from the U.S.; and a provision that increases the president’s ability to transfer defense articles to Israel directly from U.S. foreign stockpiles. 

The language of the amendment does not single out Israel, but lawmakers were blunt in statements that they are focused on Israel’s conduct of its war against Hamas and security operations in the West Bank, where Israel is in conflict with Palestinian armed groups, but civilians have been caught up in retribution violence by extremist Israeli settlers. 

“When it comes to U.S. military aid to Israel, American support cannot be a blank check to a right-wing Netanyahu government that has demonstrated a gross disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in a statement. “U.S. military aid always includes conditions, and there is no exception, even for our allies.”

President Biden has generally rejected conditioning aid to Israel, although has sent some mixed messages. He answered a shouted question on the issue, responding that it could be a “worthwhile” idea to condition aid, but signaled that he wouldn’t impose such restrictions.

Kurt Campbell, Biden’s nominee for Deputy Secretary of State, told senators on Thursday that it would not be his advice to the administration to condition aid to Israel.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), one of the amendment’s sponsors, asked Campbell if it is the position of the administration not to ask for any additional conditions on assistance to any of the countries in the national security supplemental package. 

Campbell answered in the affirmative but sought to reassure the senator on the administration’s concern over Israel’s military operations. 

“There are daily conversations at the very highest levels between senior officials in the US government and Israel, our senior military, their senior military, about their military plans and we have expressed very clear views about the conduct of their operations more generally,” Campbell told lawmakers during his nomination hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“I recognize that’s different than sort of a legislative approach. I will say that we do have very clear interests in ensuring that this conflict be conducted within what we would view as the humane rules of war.”