The Guardline
Every Democratic senator except Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman voted on Tuesday for a measure seeking to hold accountable Israeli soldiers and settlers who have killed U.S. citizens in the West Bank. The vote stood as a sign of how much the party’s position on Israel has shifted in the last two years.
Fetterman, who takes a hard pro-Israel line, was the lone holdout in his party despite having one of his constituents being the most recent Palestinian American killed in the West Bank by Israeli settlers.
Near unanimous Democratic support, however, was not enough to secure passage of the measure, with the Senate voting 51-47 against advancing the resolution. The measure would have required the State Department to report on whether it is investigating the killings of nine U.S. citizens by Israeli security forces or settlers since 2022.
Although the resolution was crafted to focus on victims most sympathetic to U.S. elected officials — American citizens slain at the hands of the right-wing Jewish settlement movement — it still drew nearly universal opposition fromSenate Republicans. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only member of the GOP to vote in favor of it.
The most recent U.S. citizen killed by settlers in the West Bank was a 19-year-old from Philadelphia. Though local Pennsylvania officials called for an investigation, neither Fetterman nor his Republican counterpart from Pennsylvania, Sen. Dave McCormick, voted for the Senate measure.
The resolution’s sponsor, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said last week that he has struggled to get information from both the Biden and Trump administrations about whether they are pursuing justice for U.S. citizens killed in the West Bank.
“The Biden administration did not do enough to secure justice, and the Trump administration has not done enough,” he said. “And if we can’t get accountability and justice for American citizens, imagine how hard it is for Palestinian families who don’t have a U.S. passport to get justice and accountability when they are killed or their villages get razed.”
Setting Up an Embargo
Van Hollen’s measure would have required the State Department to report on whether it or the Justice Department are investigating the killings of U.S. citizens in the West Bank, including that of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was slain by the Israeli military while reporting on an Israeli raid on a refugee camp in 2022.
Van Hollen’s resolution also directed the State Department to report on the status of U.S. citizens held in Israeli prisons or military detention, pointing to the lengthy incarceration of a Palestinian American 16-year-old boy from Florida.
Advocates hoped the resolution would help them accomplish much larger aims, however. Under U.S. law, the government is forbidden from selling arms to countries that engage in “a consistent pattern of gross violations” of human rights. Van Hollen’s resolution asks whether Israel’s actions fit that pattern.
In a policy paper published earlier this month, the pro-Palestine nonprofit IMEU Policy Project argued that abiding by foreign assistance law “would require halting all arms exports to Israel, whether from private U.S. companies or the U.S. government, irrespective of whether purchases are paid for with U.S. or foreign funds.”
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mt., pointed to that larger aim when he argued against the resolution on the Senate floor.
“Make no mistake: The sole objective here is not justice or accountability for Americans,” Daines said. “It is to cut off security aid to our ally Israel in its time of need.”
“Of course, any loss, all loss of American life is a tragedy,” Daines continued, adding that he was “very confident this administration will get to the bottom of this issue.”
Growing Support
Tuesday’s vote centered on whether to discharge the resolution from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Resolutions such as the one Van Hollen offered are privileged, meaning that they are the rare type of measure where any senator can force a full floor vote.
Van Hollen said last week in a briefing hosted by IMEU Policy Project that his resolution had drawn far more support, in the form of co-sponsorships by other Senate Democrats, than a similar push sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in 2014. That measure, brought weeks after the October 7 attacks, drew the support of Paul and just 10 members of the Democratic caucus.
Since then, Democrats have soured on Israel and increasingly support Palestine, according to public opinion polls. Mainstream Democrats are also facing off against a Republican in the White House rather than Biden, who generally got a free hand from his own party when it came Israel.
“While I was pleased that so many of my Democratic colleagues joined this effort, it’s clear the United States must do more,” Van Hollen said in a statement after the vote on Tuesday. “It is our responsibility to ensure recipients of U.S. taxpayer dollars act in line with our laws and our values – this resolution was an opportunity to shed light on a reality that flies in the face of that principle.”
