Yesterday, 103 House Democrats — nearly half of the Democratic caucus — supported an amendment introduced by rabidly anti-Jewish Republican Thomas Massie that would have eliminated all $3.3 billion in annual U.S. security assistance to Israel. The measure failed, with 98 Democrats voting no and 10 voting present.
There is nothing progressive about an arms embargo on the world’s only Jewish state in the middle of yet another war for its survival.
There is nothing progressive about telling the Israeli people that America’s commitment to their existential safety is conditional.
There is nothing progressive about questioning Israel’s sovereign right of self-defense, or pretending that starving Israel’s defenses is accountability rather than abandonment.
Yet we know that different Members of Congress came to the same vote with different reasoning.
One group voted to cut all aid because they hold Israel accountable for the world’s suffering the same way the world has always held the Jewish people collectively responsible.
These are members who question Israel’s foundational legitimacy and work tirelessly to unwind one of the most successful liberation and decolonization movements of the last century — a movement in which a stateless, systematically persecuted people reclaimed their safety and their homeland (Zionism).
This group has championed ideas that would lead to Israel’s dismantlement and a return of the Jewish people to systemic powerlessness. One, Rep. Ro Khanna, amplified the false claim that it would cut off defensive systems, including Iron Dome: a lie that signaled he is courting a constituency that would cheer the death of Jewish civilians.
Another group is made up of legislators with no fixed conviction at all, who vote wherever they believe the political winds are blowing. Entrenched and exploding conspiratorial antisemitism has turned Israel into one of the most potent wedge issues in American politics — more reliable for generating attention than housing, healthcare, reproductive rights, racial equity or the cost of groceries.
Members who chased that attention are not leaders — on this or any issue. Their constituents deserve infinitely better.
Their constituents deserve infinitely better.
The third group represents a view we believe is humane, Zionist — and unfortunately, misguided. These are members who were anguished by this vote; who hold sincere, legitimate and overwhelming frustration with this Israeli government’s conduct, as well as deep love for the Jewish nation. They do not want to enable Israeli conduct they believe is incompatible with both American interests and with the kind of safe, democratic Jewish state they want to see endure. They hoped to send a message to both American and Israeli executive leadership that red lines are being crossed, and they knew this poorly drafted, blunt, symbolic amendment — which zeroes out humanitarian aid, refugee resettlement, peacebuilding funds, and embassy operations — was not going to pass.
We understand and sometimes even share this group’s pain, and we believe it is sincere. We know many of them intend to continue leading in protecting Jewish Americans from violent and virulent antisemitism, and in drafting the next chapter of the U.S.-Israel relationship — one we all hope will be carried out by leaders and nations that have returned to the bedrock of shared interests and values.
Unfortunately, these good intentions do not change the impact. The message of this vote will not be received by the American or Israeli political leaders whose policies desperately need to change.
It will be received by the people who have dedicated their lives to the work of turning Israel into a pariah state, to severing its alliances, and to stripping it of the ability to defend its civilians, its soldiers, and its sovereignty from genocidal enemies.
It will be received by the terror organizations and state sponsors of terror who threaten Western civilization and who rightly see Israel as the tip of the spear in that fight for the future of open societies.
The message of this vote will be received by those who cheer the idea of defenseless Jews, and by those haroboring and weaponizing anti-Jewish bias and bigotry — including the bill’s own sponsor, Rep. Thomas Massie, who traffics in antisemitic tropes, accuses colleagues of answering to an “AIPAC babysitter” and characterized his primary as a referendum on whether “the Israeli lobby” could buy a seat in Kentucky — that their goal of slowly dismantling of Jewish sovereignty is underway.
Every member of Congress knows which of these three categories they belong to. So, increasingly, do their constituents.
We strongly encourage Zioness activists to take action by reaching out to their Members of Congress, thanking those who opposed this malign legislation and sharing feedback with those who supported it. They — and their staff — need to hear from you.
Go to www.CONGRESS.gov for contact information, and feel free to use our language in your comments.
History is exceedingly clear. Israel will take real risks for peace when its people feel secure. When Washington signals that its backing is conditional or expiring, it hardens a vulnerable society, reinforces cynical domestic political narratives, increases the likelihood of violence and emboldens the same political leaders this vote was ostensibly intended to warn.
Members of Congress who say they want a more peaceful, more prosperous future for Israelis and Palestinians alike — as Zioness desperately does — are actively advancing the opposite agenda.
A world in which the Jewish people’s only sovereign homeland is left existentially exposed — the same way Jews have collectively been left exposed and stateless for thousands of years — is not a stable world. It is a world that rewards those who traffic in hatred and bigotry, and it is a world in which more violence, not less, becomes inevitable.
Deterrence is not a talking point. It is the thing standing between “never again” and “now.”
We are grateful to the 98 House Democrats, led by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who opposed this legislation, and to every member of both parties who understands that abandoning Israel in the middle of a multi-front war is not accountability — it’s abdication.
History will not record the reasoning behind this vote. It will only record the vote that nearly half of the Democratic caucus chose to turn away from America’s moral and geopolitical obligation to stand with the Jewish nation — some out of malice, some out of indifference, some out of anguish — but all of them, together, sent the same signal to every enemy of the liberal world order.
Israel will absorb the immediate cost of that signal. The rest of us will absorb what comes next.