As the brutal war between Israel and Hamas nears its fourth month, newly retired longtime U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is, for the first time in years, powerless to do anything to alleviate the conflict.
The former Senate president pro tempore became an international authority on wartime human rights over the course of his near-five-decade-long Senate career. His namesake Leahy Law — which bars the U.S. government from providing military aid to foreign entities found to have conducted “gross violations of human rights” — is one of the nation’s strongest pieces of human rights legislation, and among the senator’s chief legacies.
Now living in Burlington and watching the conflict unfold from halfway across the world, Leahy told VTDigger last week he believes that the U.S., in continuing to send billions in military assistance to Israel, is running afoul of the Leahy Law. (The News & Citizen first reported that view in November.)
“On this one, I think that there are violations of the Leahy Law,” Leahy said. “I’m not in the Senate. I can’t fight about it… I’m not the chair of the committee. But everybody who’s asked me in the international press, the national press, I’ve said to them: I think there are violations of the Leahy Law.”
Leahy spoke to VTDigger one day after his former colleague Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., brought to the U.S. Senate floor a resolution that, if passed, would have compelled the U.S. State Department to provide Congress a report on whether Israel in its wartime campaign against Hamas is committing war crimes against innocent Palestinian people, at large. The resolution, which Sanders dubbed a “simple request for information,” failed by a 72-11 vote.
“While there is no question in my mind that Israel has the right to defend itself and go to war against Hamas, who started this terrible situation, Israel does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people and innocent men, women, and children in Gaza,” Sanders said in a 20-minute floor speech preceding the vote last Tuesday. “Tragically, that is what we are seeing right now.”
Legally barred from government or lobbying work so soon after vacating office, Leahy was careful not to opine on how he believed senators should have voted on the resolution. Asked if he was surprised to see how his former colleagues voted, he sighed and replied, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
What he did know was how he would have voted if he were still in office.
“I can’t speak for the motivation of any senator. I was pleased to see a number did vote with (Sanders),” Leahy said. “Had I been there, I would have voted for it.”
Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., who now occupies Leahy’s former seat, was one of 11 senators who voted in favor of Sanders’ resolution. In a written statement submitted to the congressional record Monday, Welch wrote that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is “intolerable and we share responsibility,” and that it’s time for the U.S. government to start saying ‘no’ to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“How much worse does the situation have to get in Gaza, and how much wider of a war in the Middle East, before we use this country’s considerable leverage — including withholding additional lethal aid — to get Israel to stop its bombing campaign, negotiate a ceasefire and the release of the remaining hostages, and allow the dramatic increase in food, water, and other humanitarian aid needed to prevent the widespread starvation, death, and disease the UN and other relief organizations warn is imminent?” Welch wrote.
Leahy said he’s proud of the impact his namesake law has had around the world and of the lives it has saved. “But it can save them only if it’s enforced,” he added.
“If American taxpayer dollars are going to be used for foreign aid or defense aid, I want… them to be dollars that Americans can stamp and say, ‘Yes, I’m proud of this big spend.’ We’ve always had a commitment to Israel since the country was created… That’s been Republican and Democratic administrations. That’s fine. I want Israel to exist. But I want the Palestinians to have their own land, too, and to be able to exist.”
