Updated at 10:13 p.m.
A major foreign aid package designed to support Ukraine’s fight against Russia and Israel’s fight against Hamas failed on a key procedural vote in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday as a united Republican caucus — joined by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. — opposed it.
The measure needed 60 votes to advance but won the support of just 49 senators, dealing a major blow to President Joe Biden, who said Wednesday that such a result could “kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield.” Among those voting in favor of the $111 billion bill was Vermont’s junior U.S. senator, Democrat Peter Welch.
Hours before Wednesday’s vote, Sanders told VTDigger in an interview that it was the measure’s funding for Israel — not Ukraine — that prompted his opposition. Republicans, meanwhile, said they objected to the bill because it insufficiently addressed security concerns along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“My view is that the most effective way to change Israeli military policy is to make it clear to (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu, we are not going to give him money with no strings attached,” Sanders said.
To send billions of U.S. dollars to fund Israel’s wartime effort without conditions, Sanders said, would signal American complicity in the targeting of innocent Palestinians. Since the Israel-Hamas War began in October, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, more than 16,000 Palestinians — a majority of them women and children — have been killed in the conflict, Reuters reported Wednesday. Hamas fighters killed more than 1,200 Israeli citizens and soldiers during the group’s surprise attack on October 7.
Sanders was the first in the Senate Democratic caucus, in mid-November, to call for conditioning U.S. aid to Israel. But ahead of this week’s vote, his appeals took on a more urgent tone.
In an open letter to his colleagues Tuesday night, he suggested that, absent guardrails on how Israel was able to spend U.S. aid and continue to wage war against Hamas, he would vote ‘no’ on the $111 billion military package, which included $50 billion in funding for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel.
On Wednesday afternoon, Sanders told VTDigger that he had not seen such guardrails put in place and made clear he planned to vote ‘no’ on the bill as it stood.
Most objectionable to Sanders was roughly $10.1 billion in U.S. aid to Israel, which he dubbed “no-strings-attached money.” The supplemental package before Congress would also have allocated roughly $4 billion for Israel’s defense systems, such as the Iron Dome. Sanders said he did not consider that portion of the money a problem.
As for the conditions Sanders was seeking, he told VTDigger that he wanted Netanyahu’s government to commit, in writing, to the “absolute right” of Gazans to return to their homes once the conflict has ended, to pledge that there will be no long-term military occupation or blockade of Gaza and, “most importantly,” that the Israeli government will truly work toward a two-state solution, “which will finally guarantee the Palestinian people a home of their own, self-rule and stability.”
Referring to Netanyahu as a “right-wing extremist,” Sanders said Wednesday afternoon, “I believe I’m the first member of the Senate to say, ‘No, we’re not going to give Netanyahu … $10 billion to continue this horrific, inhumane military policy.’”
Still, Sanders has not called for an all-out cease-fire in the conflict. Both of his colleagues in Vermont’s congressional delegation — first U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., and then Welch — have done so in recent weeks.
His resistance to following suit has brought the senator heat from his progressive supporters. At a pro-Palestinian rally in Montpelier on Sunday, organizers called out Sanders by name and the crowd booed him for declining to voice support for a cease-fire.
“If there was something magical in the word ‘cease-fire,’ I would have been the first person in Congress to say it,” Sanders said Wednesday.
The senator said he understood the position of activists pushing for this. “I think what they’re saying is, ‘Please, do everything you can to end the horrific bloodshed.’ … And I understand that. I appreciate that very much. I am doing everything that I can.”
“The problem with saying it is, it is not going to happen, because in Hamas, you have a corrupt terrorist organization that has stated before the attack on October 7, and after the attack on October 7, that their goal is to destroy Israel and engage in perpetual warfare,” Sanders continued. “To simply say ‘cease-fire,’ in my view, would be to provide false hope to anybody. I don’t know how you have a cease-fire with a group who says we don’t want a cease-fire.”
Sanders said he believes that the real power Congress holds over the Israel-Hamas War lies not in calling for a cease-fire, but in exerting its powers of appropriation — hence his ‘no’ vote Wednesday.
“You could say ‘cease-fire.’ You could say anything you want to say. What can the United States government do?” he asked. “What the United States government can do is to say, ‘Israel … we’ve put a lot of money into you over the years and, you know what? You’re not going to get more money unless you very, very much change both your military strategy — which is horrific, inhumane and in violation of international law — and, by the way, your political strategy.
“‘You want our money? You’ve got to be supportive of a two-state solution and not continue what you’re doing right now,’” he concluded.
In a statement issued Wednesday night, Welch framed his vote in favor of the procedural motion as a desire to debate a bill that included some things he supported and some he opposed.
Welch said he appreciated its inclusion of humanitarian assistance for civilians in Gaza, support for Ukraine and funding to intercept drugs along the U.S.-Mexico border. But, like Sanders, he said he opposed sending Israel a blank check.
“While this supplemental package addresses priorities that are crucial to maintaining America’s national security, I remain deeply concerned about the use of taxpayer dollars to fund Netanyahu’s war plan, which increasingly disregards Gaza’s growing humanitarian crisis,” Welch said. “I have been clear: the Netanyahu government must abide by international humanitarian law. This brutal bombing, laying waste to Gaza and killing thousands of defenseless people, must stop.”