Hunger crisis in Gaza deepens criticisms of Israel on Capitol Hill
Traditional bipartisan support is eroding on Capitol Hill as Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza has dragged on and the Palestinian casualties have soared.
The pushback is surfacing in different forms and varying degrees of formality. There have been votes to block U.S. weapons sales and proposals to recognize a Palestinian state. Many lawmakers have issued statements of public condemnation. Others have gone a long step further with accusations of genocide. And unlike debates of the past, some of the harshest rebukes are coming from conservative Republicans who have traditionally been stalwart defenders of Israel's military exploits.
It remains unclear if the blowback signals a hardened (and therefore durable) philosophical shift in thinking towards U.S.-Israel policy, or if it's merely a temporary protest of a specific episode that will dissipate when the fighting in Gaza subsides.
But this much is clear: Something is changing on Capitol Hill, and it's influencing lawmakers in both parties. Some said Congress is simply reflecting shifting sentiments back in their districts.
'There's been an attitudinal change on Capitol Hill because the Israeli government's approval ratings by the people of the United States of America have been sinking. And they continue to sink, not just among Democratic voters but among Republican voters, as well,' Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) said Friday by phone.
'The problem for the Israeli government is that the American people know genocide when they see it.'
Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), one of Israel's most vocal congressional defenders, said there's always been a natural 'ebb and flow' in U.S.-Israel relations — a vacillation occurring when 'the politics of the United States intersects with the reality of what's going on in Israel,' he said. But the Israeli government, he added, is helping drive the current ebb through its actions in Gaza.
'Two things can be true: Hamas has the power to end this war — this war is an absolute crisis for the Palestinian people — and Israel … has a responsibility to do everything it can to ensure that the people in Gaza are able to get the sustaining aid that they need,' he said Friday in a phone interview.
Though the concerns are bipartisan, they also seem to be rooted in different places.
For Democrats, the relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's conservative prime minister, has been strained for many years. Many condemned his visit to the Capitol in 2015, when he used a rare address to a joint session of Congress to blast former President Obama's effort to forge a nuclear deal with Iran. And the tensions have only grown since Netanyahu formed the most far-right coalition government in Israeli history, which is opposed to the two-state blueprint Democrats deem the only workable way to achieve a lasting peace in the region.
'The worst thing for Israel, and the U.S.-Israel relationship, is for that relationship to become a partisan issue. And we're finding it becoming a partisan issue,' Schneider said. 'In no small part, a lot of the blame rests on the shoulders of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the actions he's taken across many years.'
The Democratic critics are all quick to emphasize their support for the state of Israel and its right to self-defense, particularly in the wake of Hamas's attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, which led to the death of roughly 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 250. But given their fraught history with Netanyahu, there's been little surprise Democrats would pounce on his retaliatory response in Gaza, where more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed and recent images of starving children have horrified the world.
'Should another government be voted into power that is interested in peace, I think the American people will support that government and the state of Israel,' Johnson said, emphasizing that the beef is with the current Israeli government, not Israel itself.
More stunning have been the criticisms from the Republican side of the aisle, where support for Israel has been routine and GOP leaders have long sought to highlight Democratic divisions by staging tough votes on the issue.
That GOP unity has cracked in recent weeks. And the trend might be more lasting because some of the Republican critics are invoking the 'America First' mantra that helped propel Trump to the presidency, where his unique brand of populist isolationism has shaken the foundations of the GOP's traditional support for a muscular foreign policy in defense of global democracy.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has been a leading opponent of U.S. intervention abroad, even in support of allies. As the news of a hunger crisis has filtered out of Gaza, he's stepped up those criticisms with more pointed denouncements of Israel's conduct of the war.
'Israel's war in Gaza is so lopsided that there's no rational argument American taxpayers should be paying for it,' Massie posted recently on X. 'With tens of thousands of civilian casualties, there's a moral dilemma too. I vote to stop funding their war and lobbyists for Israel pay for campaign ads against me.'
If that was the extent of the GOP opposition, few would blink an eye. But last month, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a staunch conservative and close ally of President Trump, made waves when she forced a vote on legislation to block roughly $500 million in U.S. military aid to Israel. (Massie also supported it). And she made waves again last week when she accused Israel of orchestrating a 'genocide' against Palestinians. In doing so, she became the first Republican in Congress to apply the term to the Gaza War.
'There are children starving. And Christians have been killed and injured, as well as many innocent people. If you are an American Christian, this should be absolutely unacceptable to you. Just as we said that Hamas killing and kidnapping innocent people on Oct 7th is absolutely unacceptable,' Greene posted Thursday on X.
'Are innocent Israeli lives more valuable than innocent Palestinian and Christian lives? And why should America continue funding this?'
Trump has given his GOP allies plenty of space to broadcast their condemnations. While the president has urged Israeli leaders to 'finish the job' of eliminating Hamas, he also pointedly rejected Netanyahu's claims that there is no hunger crisis in Gaza.
'Based on television, I would say not particularly because those children look very hungry,' Trump said last week in Scotland, where he was meeting with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer. 'There is real starvation in Gaza — you can't fake that.'
The humanitarian crisis has sparked a wave of congressional activity pushing back against Israel's actions.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) last week forced a vote on a resolution to block weapons sales to Israel, similar to Greene's proposal. It failed on the Senate floor, but not before it won the support of a majority of Democratic senators — a record number.
In the House, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) is circulating a letter urging the U.S. government to recognize a Palestinian state for the first time — an effort that's already won the endorsements of roughly a dozen liberal Democrats.
This month, a number of House lawmakers will be visiting Israel on separate congressional trips, one led by GOP leaders and the other by Democrats. The participants are largely Israel allies, but other lawmakers are warning that, if Israel doesn't act swiftly to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, its opponents on Capitol Hill will only grow.
'If Netanyahu continues to overstep and intensifies the genocide, I think political support in the Congress will continue to drop, on both sides of the aisle,' Johnson said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
7 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Texas governor threatens to remove Democrats who left state over Trump-backed redistricting
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says he will begin trying to remove Democratic lawmakers from office Monday if they don't return after dozens of them left the state in a last-resort attempt to block redrawn U.S. House maps that President Trump wants before the 2026 midterm elections. The revolt by the state House Democrats, many of whom went to Illinois or New York on Sunday, and Abbott giving them less than 24 hours to come home ratcheted up a widening fight over congressional maps that began in Texas but has drawn in Democratic governors who have floated the possibility of rushing to redraw their own state's maps in retaliation. Their options, however, are limited. At the center of the escalating impasse is Trump's pursuit of adding five more GOP-leaning congressional seats in Texas before next year that would bolster his party's chances of preserving its slim U.S. House majority. The new congressional maps drawn by Texas Republicans would create five new Republican-leaning seats. Republicans currently hold 25 of the state's 38 seats. A vote on the proposed maps had been set for Monday in the Texas House of Representatives, but it cannot proceed if the majority of Democratic members deny a quorum by not showing up. After one group of Democrats landed in Chicago on Sunday, they were welcomed by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, but declined to say how long they were prepared to stay out of Texas. 'We will do whatever it takes. What that looks like, we don't know,' said state Rep. Gene Wu, the Texas House Democratic Caucus leader. But legislative walkouts often only delay passage of a bill, including in 2021 when many of the same Texas House Democrats left the state for 38 days in protest of new voting restrictions. Once they returned, Republicans still wound up passing that measure. Four years later, Abbott is taking a far more aggressive stance and swiftly warning Democrats that he will seek to remove them from office if they are not back when the House reconvenes Monday afternoon. He cited a non-binding 2021 legal opinion issued by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, which suggested a court could determine that a legislator had forfeited their office. He also suggested the lawmakers may have committed felonies by raising money to help pay for fines they'd face. 'This truancy ends now,' Abbott said. In response, House Democrats issued a four-word statement: 'Come and take it.' Lawmakers can't pass bills in the 150-member Texas House without at least two-thirds of them present. Democrats hold 62 of the seats in the majority-Republican chamber and at least 51 left the state, said Josh Rush Nisenson, spokesperson for the House Democratic Caucus. Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows said the chamber would still meet as planned on Monday afternoon. 'If a quorum is not present then, to borrow the recent talking points from some of my Democrat colleagues, all options will be on the table. . .,' he posted on X. Paxton, who is running for U.S. Senate, said on X that Democrats who 'try and run away like cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately.' A refusal by Texas lawmakers to show up is a civil violation of legislative rules. The Texas Supreme Court held in 2021 that House leaders had the authority to 'physically compel the attendance' of missing members, but no Democrats were forcibly brought back to the state after warrants were served that year. Two years later, Republicans pushed through new rules that allow daily fines of $500 for lawmakers who don't show up for work as punishment. The quorum break will also delay votes on flood relief and new warning systems in the wake of last month's catastrophic floods in Texas that killed at least 136 people. Democrats had called for votes on the flooding response before taking up redistricting and have criticized Republicans for not doing so. Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential contender who has been one of Trump's most outspoken critics during his second term, had been in quiet talks with Texas Democrats for weeks about offering support if they chose to leave the state to break quorum. Last week, the governor hosted several Texas Democrats in Illinois to publicly oppose the redistricting effort, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom held a similar event in his own state. Pritzker also met privately with Texas Democratic Chair Kendall Scudder in June to begin planning for the possibility that lawmakers would depart for Illinois if they did decide to break quorum to block the map, according to a source with direct knowledge who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations. 'This is not just rigging the system in Texas, it's about rigging the system against the rights of all Americans for years to come,' Pritzker said Sunday night. Trump is looking to avoid a repeat of his first term, when Democrats flipped the House just two years into his presidency, and hopes the new Texas map will aid that effort. Trump officials have also looked at redrawing lines in other states. Cappelletti and DeMillo write for the Associated Press. AP writer Nadia Lathan in Austin contributed to this report.
The Hill
7 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump's broken pledges are stacking up to cartoonish heights
'I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.' I'm outing myself as a comic-book nerd when I admit that President Trump often makes me think of a character from the Popeye strip — not Popeye, the spinach-eating sailor and strongman, nor his nemesis Bluto, but J. Wellington Wimpy, whose tagline has endured across decades of pop culture: 'I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.' What connects Trump and Wimpy is not just their shared love of hamburgers; it's that they are both con-men, looking to take advantage of others' gullibility or trust for their own benefit. When Tuesdays came around, Wimpy was nowhere to be found to make good on his deal. Now that voters have given Trump power, he has abandoned many of the promises he made. Consider how often Trump campaigned as if he had a foolproof plan to reduce grocery prices on day one, but in fact, grocery prices are up 3 percent year-over-year and reached record highs in 2025. In an example of classic Trump gaslighting, he's telling people the bald-faced lie that prices are ' WAY DOWN.' And think of how many times he promised not to cut Medicare or Medicaid, then bullied Republican members of Congress into passing a budget that takes $1 trillion from Medicaid, threatening to deny millions of Americans access to health care and force rural hospitals to close. Meanwhile, cuts to nutrition programs threaten rural grocery stores. Trump claimed that his trade wars and tariff policies will be good for American workers, but the actual 'deals' he is striking and policies he is imposing are undermining key industries like auto manufacturing and green energy jobs, let alone the anticipated impact on families' ability to make ends meet. He promised to balance the budget, but then pressured the Republican Congress to pass a budget that adds trillions to our national debt with a tax plan that benefits billionaires at the expense of working people. One of Trump's campaign themes has been his promise to ' drain the swamp ' and take on corruption in the nation's capital. Instead, he has elevated corruption to a previously unimaginable level, an epic level. He, his family and his companies are making billions of dollars with shady crypto schemes, deals with foreign governments, and a brazen 'money talks' approach to everything from getting presidential pardons to making antitrust and other lawsuits disappear. Trump promised to end the 'weaponization' of the government. He has, instead, turned the Justice Department, FBI and even independent agencies like the Federal Communications Commission into weapons of revenge against his personal enemies and political opponents. He has overseen the purge of FBI agents, prosecutors and other federal employees who had any role in investigating his actions and prosecuting the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. He has abused his power by bullying law firms, media companies and universities into doing his bidding — and becoming extensions of his powerful ambitions. Trump's con extends to his promise to be a champion for the rule of law, a promise he has repeatedly broken by violating the law and the Constitution. He has defied judges' rulings. He has overseen the abduction and trafficking of people into foreign concentration camps without the opportunity to prove their innocence. He granted pardons and clemency to thousands of people who took part in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, even those who brutally assaulted and injured Capitol Police officers. Trump nominated, and Republican senators irresponsibly confirmed, his former personal lawyer and prime enforcer Emil Bove to a lifetime federal judgeship, despite growing whistleblower evidence that Bove schemed to defy the courts and misled senators during his confirmation hearing. Trump said he would focus his deportation efforts on dangerous criminals and gang members. But to reach his desire for bigger numbers to brag about, his administration has unleashed terror on immigrant communities with violent arrests and brutal sweeps of hard-working and law-abiding parents and grandparents. Trump said he wants to unify the country, but he has stoked racial division, waged war on civil and voting rights and given high-ranking positions to people who have overtly promoted racism and Christian nationalists whose agendas are grounded in exclusion. It's almost laughable that Trump named his social media platform 'Truth' when one of his defining characteristics is his relentless lying about things both petty and important. Trump himself will never again face voters — we hope. Sadly, Republicans in Congress and Trump's collaborators on the Supreme Court are sacrificing our constitutional checks and balances, giving the president virtually free rein to indulge his corrupt schemes and dictatorial impulses. The American people will be paying the price long after he is gone. Trump's declining approval rating suggests that many Americans, including many who voted for Trump, are recognizing that his promises to take care of our families, our communities, our Constitution and our country, are just as trustworthy as Wimpy's pledge. So no, Trump will not be paying us next Tuesday. Or the Tuesday after. But Americans will have the final say come the first Tuesday in November. In 2026 and 2028 our elections — always held on a Tuesday — will give us a chance to stop the destruction and begin the long process of repairing and renewing our country.
Axios
7 minutes ago
- Axios
St. Paul mayoral race heats up as Kaohly Vang Her announces run
DFL State Rep. Kaohly Vang Her officially jumped into the race for St. Paul mayor Monday, becoming incumbent Melvin Carter 's first high-profile challenger. Why it matters: Her's campaign launch wakes up what had been a sleepy mayoral race. Carter has boasted runaway advantages in cash, name recognition and key endorsements — but Her is likely to draw notable support from organized labor. The big picture: A vigorous mayor's race will stir more debate about the challenges St. Paul faces, including rising property taxes, lagging housing development and a struggling downtown. State of play: Two other candidates have already stepped forward to challenge Carter, who has announced his intention to seek a third term but has not officially launched a campaign yet. Biochemist Yan Chen filed to run for the seat on Tuesday. She previously ran for the Ward 1 City Council seat. Small business owner Mike Hilborn has launched a campaign one year after unsuccessfully challenging state Rep. María Isa Pérez-Vega as a Republican in a heavily Democratic district. Zoom in: Her, 52, was born in Laos to parents who arrived in the U.S. as refugees when she was 4. She became a naturalized citizen while in junior high school. The intrigue: Her is running against her former boss; Carter hired her as policy director after first taking office in 2018. Later that year, Her won a seat representing neighborhoods along St. Paul's Summit Avenue in the Minnesota House. In this year's legislative session, Her served as the top DFLer on the House Commerce Finance and Policy committee. Flashback: Her stirred a firestorm on right-wing media earlier this year when she attempted to solicit sympathy for undocumented immigrants by declaring during a floor speech that she and her parents were "illegal" when they came to the U.S. Her later clarified that neither she nor her parents were ever undocumented, but that her father — who worked in the U.S. consulate during the Vietnam War era — had "technically" broken the law by telling a white lie on their refugee application. Her's parents are now citizens.
