The Democratic divide over Israel's response
Reps. Steny Hoyer and Jonathan Jackson demonstrate the next big debate that will consume Congress.
With the Speaker stalemale solved, the next big substantive fight in Congress is going to be over foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel – the sheer size of the Biden administration’s $106 billion request, the scope of what it should cover and contentious allocations like aid to Gaza.
On Wednesday, I had conversations with two House Democrats which displays the coming debate over our commitment to Israel. Not whether we stand with Israel’s right to defend herself following a sheer act of horrific terror by a militant group – but how far our support for their response should extend as the death toll in Gaza mounts, the humanitarian crisis grows and a political resolution looks absent from the rubble of vengeance and escalating war.
In posing many of the same questions separately to Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Rep. Jonathan Jackson of Illinois, I received very different answers on how much aid the U.S. should pour overseas, the timing of a ceasefire and the generational divide between older Democrats and younger progressives on our enduring fidelity to Israel.
I’m publishing their edited Q & As beside each other to present the divisions in the most readable fashion. Their answers have been edited for length, but the substance of their arguments are left intact.
Q: What is the likelihood of the $106 billion foreign package – including $61B for Ukraine and $14B for Israel – passing Congress?
Rep. Hoyer (D-MD): Up to this point, there’s been a majority in both the Senate and the House for funding Ukraine. And there’s certainly overwhelming support for funding Israel. So I think those two components should have over 60 [votes] in the Senate … and it’s averaged over 300 [votes] in the House.
Rep. Jackson (D-IL): I have a lot of concerns about the package. $106 billion for the lumping of all of these. I know what the party line is but … this one gives me pause. I would like to know more. I would like to see them separated. I think it deserves greater discussion. $106 billion abroad. But what is the commitment here on affordable housing? It’s the amount, it’s a finite pool of money that comes at a cost. We’ve got people sleeping outside in tents without heat in the city of Chicago, it’s cold now. They’re going to get sick… I am supportive of aid to Ukraine and to Israel. I would like to know something more about the size. We seem to find money with alacrity and all due haste when it’s for war … but when it’s for peacetime and people need housing, we can’t find money after long debates.
Q: There’s $3.5 billion earmarked for the needs of Gazans. Tom Cotton in the Senate says that’s dead. Could you support that piece?
Rep. Hoyer (D-MD): I support it, I could support it. Israel’s at war with Hamas and we’re helping them. We’re not at war with the Palestinian people, who are largely powerless in the face of the dictatorship that Hamas has imposed upon Gaza and I think we all share a view that the innocent women and children and families who have been forced out of their homes or their homes have been destroyed, I fully support Israel’s right to do that. I believe Israel needs to eliminate Hamas.
Q: You support Israel waging a ground war?