US House defeats amendment to end Israel aid, but nearly half of Democrats vote in favor

Measure’s sponsor Thomas Massie is only GOP lawmaker to back the proposal, which split Democratic leaders and underscored steep decline in support for Israel among party’s members

The US House of Representatives on Wednesday defeated an amendment to cut off aid to Israel, despite nearly half of Democrats supporting it, reflecting the growing rupture between the party and Israel.

The House voted 314 to 104 to defeat the measure, offered as an amendment to a State Department spending bill by Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a maverick who has made his disagreement with his party on Israel a signature issue and recently lost the GOP primary race to run for reelection in the November midterms.

Besides Massie, the only Republican to back the measure, 103 Democrats voted in favor, a sharp departure from previous years in which bills supporting Israel passed almost unanimously. Democrats on the party’s left flank have been strongly pushing to end US military aid to Israel entirely amid the midterm election primary campaigns, while its establishment wing wants to limit the assistance to solely defensive weaponry.

While 48 percent of Democrats backed Massie’s amendment, the figure was well below reported predictions that as high as 150 Democrats could vote for it.

The number was expected to be higher because the measure was certain to fail, allowing Democrats to vote against Israel without any practical policy consequences.

Enough Democrats still felt uncomfortable enough with the scope of Massie’s amendment that they decided to vote against it, even though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is overwhelmingly unpopular in the party.

Massie is a fiscal hawk who opposes all foreign aid, but he said he was also responding to the toll on civilians of Israel’s attacks on Hamas in Gaza. “There have been 70,000 casualties in Gaza, and I don’t think we should be part of that,” he said during House deliberations, without differentiating between civilians and combatants.

His amendment would have barred any funding in the appropriations bill from being used for Israel, and blocked $3.3 billion in annual security assistance Washington sends Israel.

The vote would have been largely symbolic even if the House had backed the amendment. To become law, it would have had to pass the Senate and override an almost certain veto by President Donald Trump, who has made support for Israel a central plank in his foreign policy.

The issue has also divided party leaders. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Democratic leader, said on Tuesday he would oppose Massie’s amendment, saying it was “too broad.”

But on Wednesday, the  No. 2 House Democrat, Representative Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, said she would support it. “We should not provide a blank check for military aid to any country that does not comply with US law, interests, and values,” she said in a statement.

American military support for Israel has increasingly plunged in popularity among Democratic voters and their representatives, with all but seven Senate Democrats voting earlier this year in favor of a Bernie Sanders-led resolution to block certain weapons sales to Israel.

Massie’s amendment also received broader support than the separate Block the Bombs Act, which would prohibit the sale of certain weapons to Israel and has gradually gained support among House Democrats, with 77 of them now co-sponsoring the legislation.

“This is a moment that signifies an end to the era of paying lip service to the need to change the reality in the region,” the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group J Street wrote in a statement after Wednesday’s vote.

J Street did not support the amendment, calling it “overly broad” and a “poorly drafted political stunt designed to divide Democrats.” Nonetheless, the group wrote that it welcomed “House Democratic leadership taking a stronger stance on using US leverage to pressure the Israeli government to change course.”

Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, wrote in a statement that Republicans pushed the vote forward as “a cynical political ploy,” and that “Republicans and Democrats alike — even many of those who voted for it — haven’t turned their back on Israel, recognizing there’s a distinction between the people of Israel and the current Israeli government.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition celebrated the amendment being blocked and criticized the Democratic party, writing that “vociferous hostility to Israel is not the fringe, it is their future.”

“Make no mistake, Thomas Massie is a voice of one in the Republican Party,” the RJC wrote in a statement. “He is a lame duck outlier, and the Republican majority left no doubt about where our party stands: resolutely with the Jewish state.”