The winds are shifting in congressional attitudes toward Israel.<\/p>\n
Traditional bipartisan support is eroding on Capitol Hill as Israel\u2019s war with Hamas in Gaza has dragged on and the Palestinian casualties have soared.<\/p>\n
The pushback is surfacing in different forms and varying degrees of formality. There have been votes to block U.S. weapons sales<\/a> and proposals to recognize a Palestinian state<\/a>. Many lawmakers have issued statements of public condemnation. Others have gone a long step further with accusations of genocide. And unlike debates of the past, some of the harshest rebukes are coming from conservative Republicans<\/a> who have traditionally been stalwart defenders of Israel\u2019s military exploits. <\/p>\n It remains unclear if the blowback signals a hardened, durable philosophical shift in thinking on U.S.-Israel policy, or if it\u2019s merely a temporary protest of a specific episode that will dissipate when the fighting in Gaza subsides.<\/p>\n But this much is clear: Something is changing on Capitol Hill, and it\u2019s influencing lawmakers in both parties. Some said Congress is simply reflecting shifting sentiments back in their districts. <\/p>\n “There’s been an attitudinal change on Capitol Hill because the Israeli government’s approval ratings by the people of the United States of America have been sinking. And they continue to sink, not just among Democratic voters but among Republican voters, as well,\u201d Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) said Friday by phone. <\/p>\n \u201cThe problem for the Israeli government is that the American people know genocide when they see it.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), one of Israel’s most vocal congressional defenders, said there\u2019s always been a natural \u201cebb and flow\u201d in U.S.-Israel relations \u2014 a vacillation occurring when \u201cthe politics of the United States intersects with the reality of what’s going on in Israel,\u201d he said. But the Israeli government, he added, is helping drive the current ebb through its actions in Gaza. <\/p>\n \u201cTwo things can be true. Hamas has the power to end this war \u2014 this war is an absolute crisis for the Palestinian people \u2014 and Israel … has a responsibility to do everything it can to ensure that the people in Gaza are able to get the sustaining aid that they need,\u201d he said Friday in a phone interview. <\/p>\n Though the concerns are bipartisan, they also seem to be rooted in different places. <\/p>\n For Democrats, the relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel\u2019s conservative prime minister, has been strained for many years. Many condemned his visit to the Capitol in 2015, when he used a rare address to a joint session of Congress to blast former President Obama\u2019s effort to forge a nuclear deal with Iran. And the tensions have only grown since Netanyahu formed the most far-right coalition government in Israeli history, one which is opposed to the two-state blueprint Democrats deem the only workable way to achieve a lasting peace in the region.<\/p>\n \u201cThe worst thing for Israel, and the U.S.-Israel relationship, is for that relationship to become a partisan issue. And we’re finding it becoming a partisan issue,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cIn no small part, a lot of the blame rests on the shoulders of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the actions he’s taken across many years.\u201d<\/p>\n The Democratic critics are all quick to emphasize their support for the state of Israel and its right to self-defense, particularly in the wake of Hamas\u2019s attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, in which the group killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 250 others. But given their fraught history with Netanyahu, there\u2019s been little surprise Democrats would pounce on his retaliatory response, as the Israeli military has killed more than 60,000 people in Gaza, and recent images of starving children have horrified the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cShould another government be voted into power that is interested in peace, I think the American people will support that government and the state of Israel,\u201d Johnson said, emphasizing that the beef is with the current Israeli government, not Israel itself.<\/p>\n More stunning have been the criticisms from the Republican side of the aisle, where support for Israel has been routine and GOP leaders have long sought to highlight Democratic divisions by staging tough votes on the issue. <\/p>\n That GOP unity has cracked in recent weeks. And the trend might be more lasting, because some of the Republican critics are invoking the \u201cAmerica First\u201d mantra that helped propel Trump to the presidency, where his unique brand of populist isolationism has shaken the foundations of the GOP\u2019s traditional support for a muscular foreign policy in defense of global democracy.<\/p>\n Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has been a leading opponent of U.S. intervention abroad, even in support of allies. As the news of a hunger crisis has filtered out of Gaza, he\u2019s stepped up those criticisms with more pointed denouncements of Israel\u2019s conduct of the war. <\/p>\n \u201cIsrael\u2019s war in Gaza is so lopsided that there\u2019s no rational argument American taxpayers should be paying for it,\u201d Massie posted recently on the social platform X. \u201cWith tens of thousands of civilian casualties, there\u2019s a moral dilemma too. I vote to stop funding their war and lobbyists for Israel pay for campaign ads against me.\u201d<\/p>\n If that was the extent of the GOP opposition, few would blink an eye. But last month, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a staunch conservative and close ally of President Trump, made waves when she forced a vote on legislation to block roughly $500 million in U.S. military aid to Israel; Massie also voted for it. And she made waves again last week when she accused Israel of orchestrating a \u201cgenocide\u201d against Palestinians. In doing so, she became the first Republican in Congress to apply the term to the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are children starving. And Christians have been killed and injured, as well as many innocent people. If you are an American Christian, this should be absolutely unacceptable to you. Just as we said that Hamas killing and kidnapping innocent people on Oct 7th is absolutely unacceptable,\u201d Greene posted Thursday on X. <\/p>\n \u201cAre innocent Israeli lives more valuable than innocent Palestinian and Christian lives? And why should America continue funding this?\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has given his GOP allies plenty of space to broadcast their condemnations. While the president has urged Israeli leaders to \u201cfinish the job\u201d of eliminating Hamas, he also pointedly rejected Netanyahu\u2019s claims there is no hunger crisis in Gaza. <\/p>\n “Based on television, I would say not particularly, because those children look very hungry,” Trump said last week in Scotland, where he was meeting with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “There is real starvation in Gaza \u2014 you can’t fake that.”<\/p>\n The humanitarian crisis has sparked a wave of congressional activity pushing back against Israel\u2019s actions. <\/p>\n Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) forced a vote last week on a resolution to block weapons sales to Israel, similar to Greene\u2019s proposal. It failed on the Senate floor, but not before it won the support of a majority of Democratic senators \u2014 a record number<\/a>. <\/p>\n In the House, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) is circulating a letter urging the U.S. government to recognize a Palestinian state for the first time \u2014 an effort that\u2019s already won the endorsements of roughly a dozen liberal Democrats. <\/p>\n This month, a number of House lawmakers will be visiting Israel on separate congressional trips, one led by GOP leaders and the other by Democrats. The participants are largely Israel allies, but other lawmakers are warning that, if Israel doesn\u2019t act swiftly to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, its opponents on Capitol Hill will only grow.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Netanyahu continues to overstep and intensifies the genocide, I think political support in the Congress will continue to drop on both sides of the aisle,” Johnson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The winds are shifting in congressional attitudes toward Israel. Traditional bipartisan support is eroding on Capitol Hill as Israel\u2019s war with Hamas in Gaza has dragged on and the Palestinian<\/p>\n