At today’s meeting of the annual J Street conference, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., suggested that the United States consider conditional aid for Israel.
“I support military assistance for Israel,” Warren’s planned remarks said, referring to aid as “the elephant in the room.”
“But if we are serious about arresting the extension of the settlement and contributing to moving the parties to a two-state solution, then it would be irresponsible not to consider all the tools we have at our disposal,” she continued. “One of them restricts the use of military aid in the occupied territories. Continuing to offer unrestricted military aid, we offer no incentive for Israel to adjust its course.. ”
Warren’s position is consistent with more progressive position on the policy of Israel that the senator has taken in recent years. Before the 2020 election cycle, Warren had come under fire for her vote on US aid to Israel during the 2014 Gaza war. At the time, she defended the vote, saying, “America has a very special relationship with Israel.”
But Warren got out of her way during his presidential campaign to position himself among the new class of Democrats for fear of questioning this special relationship. In October 2019, she said “everything is on the table” if Israel moves away from a two-state solution and in May 2020 signed a letter with 18 Senate Democrats opposing the unilateral annexation of West Bank territories. . Along the way, the senator said he would push Israel to ends his continuous occupation from Palestine and denounced the country’s decision to ban representatives of Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., from entering the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
These decisions came at a price. After Warren told Jewish anti-occupation group IfNotNow that he would push Israel to end the occupation, Republicans blasted she was anti-Israel, and some even labeled her anti-Semitic. The criticism also came from within her own party. Democratic Majority for Israel, a centralist democratic CAP working to elect pro-Israel candidates, sent a note warning other Democratic presidential candidates about IfNotNow, advising them to stick to a scenario that says they support a two-state solution.
“Warren’s support for the common sense that US military funding to the Israeli government should never go to the occupation is a huge sign of growing support among Democratic voters to take over foreign policy hawks who no longer have full control on the debate, “said Morriah Kaplan, a spokesman for IfNotNow.
Mark Mellman, a longtime strategist on the U.S. Public Affairs Committee in Israel, launched the Democratic Majority for Israel along with other Democratic strategists in 2019, in order to limit the party’s growing readiness to criticize the US relationship with Israel and human rights abuses in the occupied territories. DMFI was the first democratic group to broadcast commercials – with help from AIPAC – attacking Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., By name in any of his presidential campaigns. Most recently, the DMFI was criticized after a post on social media in 2018 appeared from a board member who wrote“Gaza is full of monsters. It’s time to burn the whole place. ”
Following the news that Warren’s presidential campaign has hired an IfNotNow co-founder, Mellman made a personal call to her campaign manager. He wanted to make sure the staff did not work on Israeli politics or Jewish awareness; Warren’s campaign assured him that the staff was not.
During the J Street speech, Warren also reiterated support for a two-state solution, condemned the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and called on Israel to help Palestinians access Covid-19 vaccines. She called on the Biden administration to restore Palestinian access to the US embassy in Jerusalem, reopen the Palestine Liberation Organization delegation’s office in Washington, DC, and take steps to end the ongoing blockade and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.