Riding high on the midterm elections’ blue wave, progressive Democrats feel they have the momentum to push through major changes to Washington’s support for Israel.
“What you are looking at behind me is a mandate,” U.S. Rep.-elect Claire Valdez, who is a Democratic Socialist, said at a Sunday press conference introducing the new progressive House lawmakers. “It is a mandate from the American people to unrig our economy … to tax the rich, to abolish [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement], and to end the genocide” in Gaza.
Riding high on the midterm elections’ blue wave, progressive Democrats feel they have the momentum to push through major changes to Washington’s support for Israel.
“What you are looking at behind me is a mandate,” U.S. Rep.-elect Claire Valdez, who is a Democratic Socialist, said at a Sunday press conference introducing the new progressive House lawmakers. “It is a mandate from the American people to unrig our economy … to tax the rich, to abolish [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement], and to end the genocide” in Gaza.
Sens.-elect Abdul El-Sayed and Troy Jackson have also described Israel’s actions in Gaza as a “genocide,” while Sen.-elect James Talarico has called for “stopping offensive weapons sales” to the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
El-Sayed told NPR after his election win: “I’d also like to see us stop selling weaponry that gets used to do the worst things, including genocide and apartheid, to Israel.” And Jackson, who has called Netanyahu a “war criminal,” said in a September interview with a local Maine news station that he doesn’t want the United States sending a “blank check” to the Israeli government anymore.
“I’m not willing to vote for any more bombs, any more aid going [to Israel],” Jackson said at a candidate event in September.
A bill that has already drawn significant progressive Democratic support is the Block the Bombs Act, which would forbid the transfer to Israel of some of the most destructive bombs in the U.S. arsenal, such as so-called bunker-buster bombs. The legislation has attracted more than 80 co-sponsors, and while it has no chance of passing the House this year, it is seen as a good candidate for being reintroduced next year with even more momentum behind it.
“The Block the Bombs Act has been a tremendous organizing vehicle that went further than many of us even thought,” said Hassan El-Tayyab, the legislative director for Middle East policy at the Quaker lobby group Friends Committee on National Legislation, adding that he would “definitely” like to see progressives go further and try to ban even more weapons than the seven munitions listed in the legislation.
Beyond the progressive wing of the incoming freshman class of Democratic lawmakers, many other Democrats with more centrist backgrounds were elected to the House and Senate or are predicted to win their still uncalled races.
But underlining just how far leftward the terrain of the policy debate has shifted among even centrist Democrats is Eileen Laubacher, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral who served on the National Security Council during the Biden administration. Laubacher, who is on the verge of flipping a red Colorado district, has said U.S. foreign aid to Israel should end, as “Israel has the ability to pay for their own weapons for defense.” However, she believes that the country should be allowed to continue to purchase U.S. weapons on a “case-by-case basis.”
Still, those newly elected progressive and centrist lawmakers won’t be seated until January. And with the 2028 U.S. presidential contest already starting to shape up, the pressure is on for would-be Democratic nominees “to show that they are meeting a new moment in the party,” said Akbar Shahid Ahmed, the author of Crossing the Red Line: Biden, His Advisors, and Israel’s War in Gaza.
Which means we could see some policy moves before the new Congress is even sworn in.
Israel’s backers in Congress this summer included a provision in the must-pass annual defense policy bill directing the Pentagon to increase the role of Israeli technologies in the development of new weapon systems. Backers hope the provision will lead to further integration of the U.S. and Israeli defense industries for years to come.
Democratic Rep. Adam Smith, who is poised to resume the chairmanship of the House Armed Services Committee, has said he would support removing the language from the bill. A compromise version of the massive bill is being hammered out by Senate and House staff and is likely to be presented to lawmakers for a vote on final passage in the next few weeks.
El-Tayyab said he is watching to see if Smith and other Democrats are willing to vote against the entire defense policy bill and risk potentially killing its chances of passage this year if the Israeli technology provision isn’t removed.
“The question is, will they go all the way and refuse to give it the support it needs to pass if that provision remains in there?” El-Tayyab said.
Meanwhile, if recent history is any predictor, there’s a good chance lawmakers will be unable to finish work on fiscal 2027 spending legislation this year. If that happens, then Democrats in January would gain new leverage in the final shaping of the appropriations bills when they take control of the Senate and House. That opens new possibilities for progressives to try to decrease or place limitations on the $3.8 billion in annual security assistance that the United States provides to Israel.
“Given what Donald Trump [said on Nov. 3], what Netanyahu has already said, where the bulk of the caucus is—Republican as well as Democratic—we are headed quickly towards zero financing of American taxpayer subsidies for Israeli arms purchases,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel U.S. lobbying group, said in a Thursday press call on the results of the midterms. “The bigger legislative battle will be over what are the conditions placed on Israel if it wants to buy weapons.”
