Posted on 04/27/24
| News Source: The Hill
President Biden is sending billions of dollars to back Israel’s war against Hamas, even as the destruction of Gaza and deaths of Palestinians fuels growing protest on college campuses.
The $26 billion in new aid to Israel, passed overwhelmingly in Congress and signed into law by Biden this week, also comes amid a deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and a looming Israeli invasion of the southern city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinian civilians are sheltering.
While Democrats have expressed growing concerns about how Israel is carrying out its war in Gaza, they largely rallied around sending more weapons when the bill moved through the House and Senate in the past week.
Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said weapons to Israel remains “sacrosanct” in Washington, and the latest package was helped by a rallying around Israel after Iran’s April 13 barrage of some 300 missiles and drones toward the nation.
But Elgindy said the aid package highlights a “huge gap” between Democrats in Congress and rank-and-file voters, including those currently protesting at colleges nationwide.
“Eventually that gap will have to narrow unless the party wants to remain permanently at odds with its voters, which I can’t imagine they want to do,” he said. “Public opinion has shifted very, very dramatically, especially among the left and among people who identify as Democrats.”
“The overarching trends in this case are the Democrats are moving gradually more and more toward aid conditionality,“ he added, “even if this particular vote doesn’t reflect that.”
The debate comes as college campuses across the U.S. are roiled by pro-Palestinian students rallying against the war in Gaza and calling for universities to divest from Israeli companies or defense companies supplying weapons to Israel.
But Julie Rayman, managing director of policy and political affairs at the American Jewish Committee, said the protests are “emotionally driven” and problematic because some have chanted to free Palestine “from the river to the sea,” which can be interpreted as a call to eliminate Israel as a state.
She said there is a disconnect between what some of these students are chanting for and what lawmakers in Congress are calling for, such as alleviating suffering in Gaza.
“What we’re seeing now [on] college campuses is, frankly, and I think indisputably, not productive,” she said. “I don’t worry necessarily that these protests are massive signals on how society is viewing this” war.
Rayman sees support for Israel as “overwhelmingly” strong in Washington, a consensus she says must be maintained.
“There’s all sorts of issues that need to be considered” on U.S. engagement with Israel and how it prioritizes humanitarian aid, she said. “But none of that can come at the expense of ensuring the defense of our most strategic ally.”
The $26 billion package is almost entirely earmarked for defensive and offensive weapons for Israel, with some funds for U.S. forces in the Middle East.
Critics of prevailing U.S. policy toward Israel have urged Biden to use Israel’s desire for U.S. weapons as leverage to lessen the suffering in Gaza, where more than 34,000 Palestinians have died in nearly seven months of war.