Senator Bernie Sanders is leveraging an obscure provision to force a Senate vote on potentially freezing military aid to Israel unless the State Department reports on human rights abuses in Gaza.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks at a press conference on raising the federal minimum wage outside the U.S. Capitol Building May 04, 2023 in Washington, DC. During his remarks Sanders announced that he would be introducing a bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour.
Sen. Sanders is calling upon the Foreign Assistance Act to force the Senate to vote Tuesday afternoon on a measure that would potentially freeze military aid to Israel unless the State Department produces a report on human rights abuses in Gaza, The Hill said.
Should the resolution go into effect, The State Department would then be required to report any human rights violence committed during Israel's blockade and invasion of Gaza in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks on Israeli civilians. U.S. assistance to Israel would freeze if the State Department fails to produce a report after 30 days.
The Hill noted that the resolution has little chance of becoming law because it must pass both chambers and be signed by President Biden.
Sanders introduced his resolution on Thursday to force a floor debate on what he has called the Netanyahu government's "indiscriminate and disproportionate military operations" in Gaza since the Oct. 7 attacks.
"In essence, we will be voting on a very simple question: Do you support asking the State Department whether human rights violations may have occurred using U.S. equipment or assistance in this war? This resolution is not prescriptive - it does not alter aid to Israel in any way. It simply requests that the State Department report on how our aid is being used," Sanders argued on the Senate floor last week.
The Washington Examiner announced Sanders initially filed the resolution last month and noted he has consistently been one of the advocates for adding conditions for aid to Israel with regard to how it handles its war with Hamas. Sanders has decried the war as illegal and immoral and said the U.S. "must no longer be complicit in destroying the lives of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza."
"The concern that I have is that we are now going to war against the Palestinian people in general," he revealed to Punchbowl News, as quoted by The Washington Examiner.
The New York Times reported other senators backing the resolution have argued that it should not be controversial to seek accountability in a deadly war.
"It asks important questions about the conduct of the war and the rights of civilians," Senator Peter Welch, Democrat of Vermont, said of Mr. Sander's resolution in a statement. "Congress and the American people deserve answers to these questions."
What Are Other Senators Saying?
However, Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said, "I'm inclined against it," explaining that he was focusing his efforts elsewhere. Kaine is leading a push to preserve Congress' ability to review arms transfers to Israel, which would be waived under the emergency national security spending bill.
According to NYT, Republican Senator, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has called the idea of placing restrictions on military aid to Israel "ridiculous."
Pro-Israel groups are lobbying intensely against the proposals to put conditions on aid to Israel, as well as Sanders' resolution. NYT went on to say that the Biden administration has resisted congressional efforts to place stipulations on aid and contends that the resolution is ill-timed and unnecessary.
However, The Biden administration's recent use of emergency powers to bypass Congress and speed weapons to Israel has also irked many of the lawmakers pressing for statutory changes.
