The Senate on Tuesday sidestepped an attempt to use a little-known statute to force the State Department to publicly assess whether Israel has been using U.S.-provided weapons to violate Palestinian human rights in the Gaza Strip.
Senators voted, 72-11, to table a motion made by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that would discharge from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee his resolution to direct the State Department to report on whether Israel’s usage of U.S. security assistance complies with international human rights standards.
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Md., made the motion to table Sanders’ motion, averting a floor vote on an issue that many Democrats wanted to avoid. Though many of them acknowledge the civilian cost of Israel’s effort to eliminate Hamas from the Gaza Strip, they also don’t want to be seen as critics of Israel’s response to Hamas’ deadly attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
“This is a simple request for information. That is all this resolution is about. It does not alter aid to Israel in any way. It simply requests a report on how U.S. aid is being used,” Sanders said in a floor speech before the vote. “This is a very modest, common-sense proposal and, frankly, very hard for me to understand why anyone would oppose it.”
Though only a simple majority would have been needed to adopt the privileged resolution and put it into effect, reservations by a sizable number of Democrats and all Republicans to anything seen as official congressional criticism of Israel’s response to the worst terrorist attack in its history and the biggest single-day loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust doomed it. Some 1,200 people were killed in the coordinated Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. The U.S. and the European Union classify Hamas as a terrorist organization.
“I am opposed to the Sanders resolution that would require the U.S. State Department — in 30 days — to produce a comprehensive…
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