\n<\/p>\n
A vote in the United States Senate to block military equipment for Israel this week ended in defeat. But rights advocates are hailing the result as an \u201cinflection point\u201d that shows growing frustration with Israeli policies.<\/p>\n
Democratic senators overwhelmingly supported the measure on Wednesday, which aimed to stop the sale of military bulldozers to Israel. Only seven crossed party lines to join the Republican majority in sinking the bill in a 40-59 vote.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Activists are calling the tally a sign of \u201chistoric\u201d progress.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the measure didn\u2019t pass, the vote makes clear that a majority of Senate Democrats now oppose unconditional aid to Israel, aligning with the views of most Americans,\u201d said Hassan el-Tayyab, legislative director for Middle East policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a peace advocacy group.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was not only a vote about arms sales, but a vote against further escalation, including a wider war with Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n The bill, introduced by progressive Senator Bernie Sanders, came amid growing anger over the conflict with Iran, which US President Donald Trump launched jointly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without congressional authorisation.<\/p>\n Some senators who are usually staunch supporters of Israel \u2014 including Adam Schiff, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar \u2014 backed the measure on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Israel has been using bulldozers to raze entire towns in Lebanon and Gaza, as part of campaigns that rights advocates say amount to ethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n In a separate vote on Wednesday, 36 senators, all Democrats, also supported a bill to block 1,000lbs (450kg) bombs to Israel.<\/p>\n Similar bills to stop arms sales to Israel received 27 \u201cyea\u201d votes last year and 18 in 2024, respectively.<\/p>\n Support for Wednesday\u2019s resolution against the bulldozer sales was more than double the number of senators who opposed the 2024 weapons transfers.<\/p>\n Advocates point to the cumulative effect of Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza, ongoing destruction of south Lebanon and the now-paused war with Iran as contributing to the political shift.<\/p>\n \u201cThat shift reflects where the American people are,\u201d Sanders said in a statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cAmericans, whether they are Democrats, Republicans or independents, want to see our tax money invested in improving lives here at home \u2014 not used to kill innocent women and children in the Middle East and put American troops in harm\u2019s way as part of Netanyahu\u2019s illegal wars of expansion.\u201d<\/p>\n A Pew Research Center survey this month suggested that 60 percent of US adults, including 80 percent of Democrats, have unfavourable views of Israel.<\/p>\n Israel is especially unpopular among young people, regardless of party. Pew\u2019s poll found that 70 percent of respondents under age 50 \u2014 including 57 percent of Republicans and 84 percent of Democrats \u2014 expressed negative views towards Israel.<\/p>\n But Republicans in the Senate, who have rarely broken ranks with Trump, voted unanimously against Sanders\u2019s resolutions on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Republican Senator Rick Scott accused the Democrats who voted in favour of the measure of siding \u201cwith terrorism\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThey blocked CRITICAL arm sales to Israel that would\u2019ve helped our allies confront terrorists who want to see both of our countries destroyed,\u201d\u00a0 he wrote in a social media post.<\/p>\n \u201cDemocrats will do anything to oppose President Trump, even if it means putting AMERICAN lives on the line.\u201d<\/p>\n Beth Miller, the political director at the advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action, said it was \u201cshameful\u201d that US lawmakers continue to vote to arm Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cIt should be that every single senator is voting to block every single piece of weaponry to Israel at this point \u2014 not just because of the genocide in Gaza, but because of the bombardment of Lebanon and the ongoing atrocities that both Israel and the Trump regime are carrying out in Iran,\u201d Miller told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n Still, she lauded the growing dissent against unconditional aid to Israel, once seen as the default position on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n In her view, the 40 votes in favour of Wednesday\u2019s resolution \u201cshows massive cracks in the political pillar that upholds the US-Israel alliance\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cLast night was an inflection point,\u201d Miller said. \u201cIt was a moment where senators were forced on record to answer the very simple question: Do you really want to keep arming the Israeli military, yes or no?\u201d<\/p>\n The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), however, had lobbied against the bill.<\/p>\n \u201cThis dangerous effort would undermine Israel\u2019s security and put Israeli families at further risk as our ally faces ongoing terror attacks on multiple fronts,\u201d the influential pro-Israel lobby group said in an email to supporters last week.<\/p>\n The vote came days after J Street, a liberal Zionist group that describes itself as pro-Israel and pro-peace, endorsed phasing out US assistance to the Israeli military.<\/p>\n The group welcomed the support for Sanders\u2019s resolution as a sign that senators were increasingly questioning unconditional aid to Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cToday\u2019s vote marks an important step in opposing Netanyahu and Trump\u2019s destructive policies that have devastated the region and done immense harm to Israel\u2019s security and its global standing,\u201d J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said in a statement.<\/p>\n Chuck Schumer, the Senate\u2019s top Democrat, sided with the minority in the caucus in voting against Sanders\u2019s resolution, intensifying criticism of his leadership within the party.<\/p>\n Progressive Congressman Ro Khanna called on Schumer to resign from his role after the vote.<\/p>\n \u201cThese bulldozers are used to illegally destroy Palestinian villages,\u201d Khanna said in a video message.<\/p>\n \u201cMr Schumer, you are out of touch with the base of this party and with your own caucus. Step aside.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier this week, JVP and other Palestinian rights advocacy groups held a protest outside the offices of Schumer and his fellow New York senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, to urge them to back Sanders\u2019s bill.<\/p>\n But both legislators voted against the measure.<\/p>\n Miller said the vote further demonstrates that Schumer \u201chas no business\u201d being the Democratic leader in the Senate.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is wildly out of touch with where the Democratic voter base is. In fact, he is actively doing the opposite of what Democratic voters want him to do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Schumer\u2019s office did not respond to Al Jazeera\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n Miller said activists will continue to pressure Schumer and other lawmakers to stop the flow of weapons to Israel, adding that Wednesday\u2019s tally was the result of years of advocacy.<\/p>\n El-Tayyab also said activists have been writing letters and making phone calls en masse to individual senators to convince them to restrict aid to Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to continue pressing Congress to hold more votes and debates on military aid to Israel until its support for Israel\u2019s war crimes against Palestinians, Lebanese civilians and communities across the region comes to an end,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A vote in the United States Senate to block military equipment for Israel this week ended in defeat. But rights advocates are hailing the result as an \u201cinflection point\u201d that shows growing frustration with Israeli policies. Democratic senators overwhelmingly supported the measure on Wednesday, which aimed to stop the sale of military bulldozers to Israel. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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