The Senate voted down two resolutions to prevent sales of weapons and military bulldozers to Israel.

One resolution failed in a 40-59 vote.

Seven Democrats voted against the measure introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

More from The Times of Israel:

Forty out of 47 Senate Democrats voted in favor of one of the resolutions to block a $295 million sale of bulldozers, which the initiative’s author, Senator Bernie Sanders, claimed would be used to demolish homes in the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon. Fifty-nine senators — mostly Republicans — voted against blocking the sale.

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Thirty-six Democrats backed another resolution aimed at blocking a $152 million sale of 1,000-pound bombs to the IDF, which Sanders argued would be used in Gaza and Lebanon. Sixty-three senators voted against blocking the sale.

“The United States must use the leverage we have — tens of billions in arms and military aid — to demand that Israel ends these atrocities,” Sanders said, urging support for the resolutions.

Israel says it does not intentionally target civilians, and that its strikes are intended to neutralize terror threats and military infrastructure.

“We cannot continue to fund the extremist government of Netanyahu who has been waging a genocidal war in Gaza, who started the war in Iran, was violating all kinds of international law in the West Bank killing Palestinians,” Sanders said.

“And is now at war, an expansionist war, in Lebanon,” Sanders continued.

“It’s not only killed thousands of people, it has displaced over a million people and Israel now occupies something like 14 percent of the territory of Lebanon,” he said.

“And the American people are saying, this really what we should continue spending billions of dollars on when we have so many problems at home?” Sanders added.

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Similar bills to stop arms sales to Israel received 27 “yea” votes last year and 18 in 2024, respectively.

Support for Wednesday’s resolution against the bulldozer sales was more than double the number of senators who opposed the 2024 weapons transfers.

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Advocates point to the cumulative effect of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, ongoing destruction of south Lebanon and the now-paused war with Iran as contributing to the political shift.

“That shift reflects where the American people are,” Sanders said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Americans, whether they are Democrats, Republicans or independents, want to see our tax money invested in improving lives here at home — not used to kill innocent women and children in the Middle East and put American troops in harm’s way as part of Netanyahu’s illegal wars of expansion.”

A Pew Research Center survey this month suggested that 60 percent of US adults, including 80 percent of Democrats, have unfavourable views of Israel.

Israel is especially unpopular among young people, regardless of party. Pew’s poll found that 70 percent of respondents under age 50 — including 57 percent of Republicans and 84 percent of Democrats — expressed negative views towards Israel.

But Republicans in the Senate, who have rarely broken ranks with Trump, voted unanimously against Sanders’s resolutions on Wednesday.

 

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