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Senate Democrats vote to block arms for Israel as base turns pro-Palestine

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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Demonstrators gather outside Google’s Chicago headquarters on April 15, 2026. [Jacek Boczarski – Anadolu Agency]

An overwhelming majority of Senate Democrats voted yesterday to block new US arms sales to Israel, in a significant sign of how far the party has moved away from its once near-unquestioned support for arming Israel. 

Two resolutions introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders seeking to halt the sale of bulldozers and 1,000-pound bombs were defeated, but they won the backing of most Democrats in the chamber. The Senate voted 40-59 against blocking the bulldozer sale and 36-63 against blocking the sale of bombs.

The measures targeted roughly $446.8 million in military sales, including $295 million in armoured bulldozers and $151.8 million in 1,000-pound bombs. Sanders said the weapons had been used in Gaza, Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories and argued that the sales raised serious concerns under US law, including the Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act.

The vote was notable for the split among the rank of Democrat lawmakers. Forty of the Senate’s 47 Democrats voted to stop supplying bulldozers to the Israeli military, while 36 voted against supplying bombs. That means around 85 per cent of Senate Democrats backed at least measures to stop Israel continue its ethnic cleansing through the demolition of Palestinian homes. 

Key Democratic figures including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand and John Fetterman voted against blocking the sales, alongside all or nearly all Republicans.

The vote fits a broader political realignment inside the Democratic Party. A Pew poll published this month found that 80 per cent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents now hold an unfavourable view of Israel, up from 69 per cent last year and 53 per cent in 2022.

READ: Poll finds most Americans hold unfavourable views of Israel

That shift has been increasingly visible on Capitol Hill. Yesterday’s vote is seen as further evidence of “growing dissatisfaction” among Democrats with US military backing for Israel. Once a fringe view in Congress, ending US support for the apartheid state is the mainstream position of Democrats.

Pressure is also growing on Schumer, who remains out of step with much of his party’s base on Israel. In the days before the vote, nearly 100 protesters were arrested in New York after demanding that Schumer and Gillibrand support Sanders’s resolutions. 

After Schumer voted against the resolution, Representative Ro Khanna publicly told him to “step aside”, saying he was “out of touch with our base and the nation.”

Even though Sanders’s resolutions failed, the scale of Democratic support marked a new high-water mark for congressional opposition to arming Israel. Reuters said the votes showed “growing unease among Democrats” over US military support for Israel, while the Guardian described the result as evidence of noticeable momentum within the party for greater scrutiny of arms sales amid the devastation in Gaza and wider regional escalation.

For Democratic leaders who have continued to back military aid, the political warning is becoming harder to ignore. The party’s voters are moving sharply towards the Palestinians, and Wednesday’s vote showed that most Senate Democrats are now moving with them.

READ: J Street backs ending US military aid to Israel in sign of widening Democratic shift

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel's genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism "without qualification". Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
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