Israel breathed a small sigh of relief on Wednesday after a majority of US Senate Democrats joined Republicans in voting down a series of measures led by progressive Senator Bernie Sanders aimed at blocking weapons shipments to Jerusalem.
While it was clear from the get-go that the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval were doomed to fail, given that only a handful of Democrats were needed to join Republicans, there was concern in Israel that progressive critics would succeed in rallying a majority of Democrats to their cause in what would have been a major testament to their strength within the party, a senior Israeli official told The Times of Israel on Thursday.
Accordingly, diplomats at Israel’s Embassy in Washington engaged intensively in the lead-up to Wednesday’s votes, working to identify every single Democratic senator who was on the fence and meeting with those lawmakers in order to try and sway their stances, said the official.
Some of those meetings paid dividends as embassy diplomats managed to convince several lawmakers to flip their votes after those senators had initially planned to support the JRDs, claimed the senior Israeli official, while declining to share any names.
Some progressive lawmakers stood their ground though, telling Israeli diplomats that they felt compelled to make a political statement about their disapproval of Israel’s prosecution of the war with Hamas in Gaza, given that they knew the resolutions would fail, said a second source familiar with the matter.
Israeli diplomats sought to explain that voting against the sale of tank rounds, mortar rounds and joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs), which won’t arrive in Israel for another year or two, will have far greater implications on Israel’s efforts to combat the shared Iranian adversary than it will on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
But this argument didn’t succeed in convincing an expanding minority of progressive Democrats who are convinced that Israel has not heeded repeated US calls to mitigate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Israel insists it is taking steps to allow for aid to reach civilians in Gaza. But last month saw the lowest levels of aid enter the Strip since the year began and much of the aid entering the enclave hasn’t been distributed due to IDF restrictions and mass looting.
Israel says Hamas is still managing to control much of the aid coming in, but the US has pleaded with Israel from the start of the war to allow the Palestinian Authority, with the support of Arab allies to play a role in the management of Gaza. Jerusalem has refused, and Hamas fighters have managed to return to areas already cleared several times by the IDF, maintaining the dragged-out nature of the war.
Israel is now trying to recruit private subcontractors to take charge of aid distribution. But it is expecting the United Arab Emirates to pay for this endeavor when Abu Dhabi has repeatedly said that it will only do so if Israel agrees to allow for a reformed PA to participate as part of a pathway to a two-state solution — a framework Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long rejected.
Frustration with Netanyahu’s government was cited by many of the 19 Democrats who voted to block the transfer of tank rounds, mortar rounds and JDAMs from Israel.
The incoming ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Jeanne Shaheen voted against all three arms deals, as did the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate Dick Durbin. Freshman Senator Jon Ossoff voted against the sales of tanks and mortar rounds but not the JDAMs.
Still, the senior Israeli official said the numbers of senators who backed the JRDs could have been larger had it not been for Jerusalem’s engagement on the matter.
He also credited the Biden administration’s intervention. US officials told The Times of Israel on Tuesday that they also lobbied Democrats against the resolutions earlier this week.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the resolutions would have been counterproductive to US efforts to secure ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza.
“We have strong reason to believe that terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah want to see Israel in a position of weakness, and we don’t want to see that happen,” she added.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also pressed colleagues to vote against the Sanders-led measures, the official said.
With the matter now completed and Republicans readying for the next session of Congress, in which they are set to control both houses, the senior Israeli official cautioned against “giving up” on the Democratic Party.
He acknowledged that there is a “loud” wing of critics that has grown in size, but Wednesday’s results showed that they have not won the battle.
Moreover, the official noted that Congress could easily flip after one term, making engagement with Democrats in the interim critical to ensure such efforts to block arms sales to Israel continue to fail, regardless of who is in control on the Hill.