At today’s meeting of the annual J Street conference, Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., suggested that the U.S. consider conditional aid to Israel.
“I support military aid to Israel,” Warren said in a statement, referring to the aid as “the elephant in the room.”
“But if we are serious about arresting the settlement and helping the parties move towards a two-state solution, it would be irresponsible not to consider all the tools at our disposal,” her speech continued. . ‘One of them restricts the use of military aid in the occupied territories. By continuing to provide unrestricted military assistance, we offer Israel no incentive to adjust the course. ”
Warren’s position is consistent with the more progressive attitude about the policies of Israel that the senator has taken over the past few years. Before the 2020 election cycle, Warren came under fire for her vote on US aid to Israel during the Gaza war in 2014. At the time, she defended the vote, and said, “America has a very special relationship with Israel.”
But during her presidential campaign, Warren went out of her way to place herself among the new class of Democrats, not afraid to question that special relationship. In October 2019, she said ‘everything is on the table’ if Israel were to move away from a two-state solution, and in May 2020, she signed a letter with 18 Senate Democrats opposing Israel’s unilateral annexation of territories in the West Bank. On the campaign trail, the senator said she would push Israel there end the continuing profession of Palestine and denounced the country’s decision to prevent representatives Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., from entering the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
These decisions cost a price. After Warren told activists of the Jewish anti-occupation group IfNotNow that she would push Israel to end the occupation, Republicans blown her as anti-Israel, and some even label her an anti-Semite. Criticism also flowed from her own party. Democratic Majority for Israel, a centrist Democratic PAC working to elect candidates for Israel, sent a memo warns other Democratic presidential candidates about IfNotNow, and urges them to stick to a text that says they support a two-state solution.
“Warren’s support for the common sense idea that US military funding should never go to the Israeli government after the occupation is a major sign of the growing support among Democratic voters to tackle the hawks of foreign policy who do not have more complete control over the debate. , ”Said Morriah Kaplan, spokesperson for IfNotNow.
Mark Mellman, a longtime strategist for the U.S. Committee on Public Affairs in Israel, along with several other Democratic strategists, launched Democratic Majority for Israel in 2019, with the goal of combating the growing willingness among the party’s left wing to end American relations. with Israel and the violation of human rights in the occupied territories. DMFI was the first Democratic group to advertise – with help from AIPAC – attack Sen Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., By name in one of his presidential campaigns. DMFI recently received criticism after a post appeared on social media in 2018 of a board member who wrote“Gaza is full of monsters. Time to burn the whole place. ”
Following the news that Warren’s presidential campaign has appointed IfNotNow co – founder Mellman made a personal call to her campaign manager. He wanted to make sure that the staff member was not working on the policy of Israel or the Jewish outreach; Warren’s campaign assured him that the staff member was not.
During the J Street speech, Warren also reiterated support for a two-state solution, condemning the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and calling on Israel to help Palestinians gain access to Covid-19 vaccines. She called on the Biden government to restore access to the US Embassy in Jerusalem for Palestinians, to reopen the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s branch office in Washington, DC, and to take steps to end the ongoing blockade and subsequent to end humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.