Despite White House Pressure, 19 U.S. Senators Back Bernie Sanders’s Bills to Block Arms Sales to Israel

AMY GOODMAN: And I want to go right over to what happened on the Senate floor, independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders speaking ahead of Wednesday’s Senate vote to block the sale of U.S. tank rounds, bomb kits and other lethal weapons to Israel. The measure did fail, but 18 other senators joined Sanders to stop arming Israel.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I have heard members of the U.S. Senate come to this floor to denounce human rights violations taking place around the world. I have heard well-founded concerns about China’s brutal reception of the Uyghur ethnic minority. I’ve heard rightful outrage about Putin’s brutal attacks against Ukraine and bombing of civilian installations. I’ve heard genuine concern about Iran’s outrageous crackdown on peaceful protesters. I’ve heard repeated condemnations of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia’s terrible treatment of women and political dissidents. And on and on it goes. A lot of folks come to the floor to talk about human rights and what’s going on around the world.

But what I want to say to all those folks: Nobody is going to take anything you say with a grain of seriousness. You cannot condemn human rights around the world and then turn a blind eye to what the United States government is now funding in Israel. People will laugh in your face. They will say to you, “You’re concerned about China? You’re concerned about Russia? You’re concerned about Iran? Well, why are you funding the starvation of children in Gaza right now?”

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Senator Bernie Sanders. While this move did fail, it was the largest grouping of senators to vote against arming Israel. Akbar Shahid Ahmed, if you can talk about the significance of this and the latest piece you did on what happened in the White House and how they were threatening these senators, your “Exclusive: White House Says Democrats Who Oppose Weapons to Israel Are Aiding Hamas”?

AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: Absolutely, Amy. And I’ll just start by noting that what Ambassador Bamya and Senator Sanders said, that really speaks to the salience of this issue — right? — and why it’s not going away, is something that the Biden administration has failed to grapple with. In their thinking, they think, “Well, people will get over this like they’ve gotten over foreign policies slights and missteps by the U.S. before.” I think this is a fundamentally different issue. And what the Biden administration tried to do to kind of not just tackle and continue support for Israel, but to reject scrutiny and kind of threaten senators, was really striking yesterday.

So, the exclusive I got that you’re talking about was a document from the White House that they prepared and sent to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, 24 hours before the vote, where essentially they said, “If you vote against weapons for Israel, you, as United States senators, are supporting Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.” Now, that’s the kind of accusation and rhetoric that observers say is reminiscent of the Bush administration, right? You’re with us, or you’re against us. And that’s the kind of thinking with which the Biden administration continues to approach critics of their policy, despite the really clear consequences of their policy and the fact that they’re on their way out, right? They are not the future of the Democratic Party. It is now not just on Senator Sanders, but really on those who remain in the Senate, on Democrats kind of up and down the country, to craft a different legacy given that there is popular dissatisfaction.

And what I heard in terms of the White House document and talking points that they were pushing privately to senators was that this fueled just deep kind of resentment among senators who heard it. And folks were saying, “Look, the White House won’t even put their name on these arguments while they’re calling us kind of terrorist sympathizers,” which is a huge claim about U.S. lawmakers.

Simultaneously, Amy, the context of this is that hard-line pro-Israel forces, chief among them AIPAC, which is the biggest pro-Israel lobby in the country, were also pushing against this vote, were also telling senators, “If you vote with Sanders, we’re going to come after you. We see this as a betrayal of Israel, a close United States partner.” So, you saw the Biden administration working hand in glove with forces that are not just ardently pro-Israel, but have been against Democrats, often against Biden, against President Barack Obama. But that’s the way they’ve aligned themselves politically.

The fact that after all of that you still had close to a fifth of members of the U.S. Senate stand up and vote against weapons for Israel at a time of war, at a time when AIPAC and pro-Israel forces have indicated their political strength yet again, that’s huge. This is historic and symbolic. And while I think antiwar advocates were, to a degree, disappointed — they had wanted to get at least half of Senate Democrats — the amount of intense pressure that you saw from the Biden administration to try to suppress this vote, including up to sending Secretary of State Tony Blinken to Capitol Hill yesterday, that shows you they were up against a lot, and they still managed to get 19 senators, which was quite a mental strike.

AMY GOODMAN: Akbar Shahid Ahmed, we want to thank you so much for being with us, senior diplomatic correspondent for HuffPost. We’ll link to your newest piece, which is an exclusive, “White House Says Democrats Who Oppose Weapons to Israel Are Aiding Hamas.”

Coming up, we get the latest from here at the U.N. climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, as calls mount for wealthy, polluting nations to pay more for their role in causing the climate crisis. The People’s Plenary has just gotten out. We are right next to it. The hundreds of people who are making their way out have taped their mouths with the words “pay up” written across the tape. We’ll be back in a minute.