[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 66 (Wednesday, April 15, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1775-S1779]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROVIDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISAPPROVAL OF THE PROPOSED FOREIGN
MILITARY SALE TO THE GOVERNMENT OF ISRAEL OF CERTAIN DEFENSE ARTICLES
AND SERVICES--Motion to Discharge
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, pursuant to section 36(b)(1), I move to
discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration
of S.J. Res. 138.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The senior assistant executive clerk read as follows:
Motion to discharge from the Committee on Foreign
Relations, S.J. Res. 138, a joint resolution providing for
congressional disapproval of the proposed foreign military
sale to the Government of Israel of certain defense articles
and services.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking Senator Kelly
not only for his remarks and his work as a U.S. Senator but for his
service to our country in the military, and I very much appreciate his
support for these resolutions.
Mr. President, 60 percent of our people here in the United States
live paycheck to paycheck. They are struggling to pay for groceries,
for housing, for healthcare, and, increasingly, the ability to fill up
their gas tanks in their cars in order to get to work.
We also have a $37 trillion national debt. Bottom line: The American
people--whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents,
conservatives, moderates, or progressives--want to make certain that
their tax dollars are spent responsibly.
And in strong and growing numbers, they do not want us to continue
spending billions of their taxpayer dollars in support of the illegal,
horrific, and expansionist war policies of the Netanyahu Government in
Israel.
Since October 7, 2023, the United States has provided over $21
billion--$21 billion--in military aid to Israel. And today, we are
saying loudly and clearly: Enough is enough.
We all know that on October 7, 2023, Hamas, a terrorist organization,
attacked Israel. They killed more than 1,200 innocent men, women, and
children and took hundreds of hostages. I believe that there is no
disagreement in this Chamber that like any other country on Earth,
Israel had the absolute right to respond to that barbaric Hamas attack.
But Israel did not have the right to violate international law and
wage an all-out war of unspeakable destruction against the entire
Palestinian people in what experts have correctly concluded is a
genocide.
Israel did not have the right out of a population of 2.2 million to
kill more than 72,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wound over 170,000. That
is more than 10 percent of the population.
If that happened here in America, that would be over 30 million
Americans dead or wounded. And in Gaza, a strong majority of the dead
and wounded are women, children, and the elderly.
By the way, that number is likely an underestimate as to the tragedy
as bodies are literally being pulled out of the rubble every single
day.
Israel did not have the right to destroy virtually all of Gaza's
infrastructure, including its water and sewer systems and its supply of
electricity. They did not have the right to demolish every one of
Gaza's 12 universities, along with hundreds of schools, dismantling
their entire educational system. A vast majority of the children in
Gaza today are not in school.
Israel did not have the right to indiscriminately bomb civilian
neighborhoods and damage or destroy over 90 percent of the housing
units in Gaza--over 90 percent damaged or destroyed--resulting in the
vast majority of the population there now sleeping in tents.
That is where they are today.
Israel did not have the right to bomb over 90 percent of the
hospitals in Gaza--hospitals--and kill 1,700 healthcare workers.
And Israel did not have the right to impose a blockade which
prevented food, water, and medicine from entering Gaza, resulting in
thousands of Palestinians being diagnosed with malnutrition and
hundreds actually starving to death.
But, today, we are not just talking about Gaza. In the West Bank, in
direct violation of international law that protects Palestinian
territory, Israeli soldiers and settlers, since 2023, have killed over
a thousand Palestinians, including 233 children. During that period,
they have demolished more than 6,000 Palestinian homes and established
more than 200 new illegal settlements and outposts in Palestinian
territory.
And let us be clear, because I think there is some confusion about
this. These actions are not just the results of some extremist, out-of-
control settlers who are just doing whatever they want. Those actions
are consistent with Israeli Government policy.
Netanyahu's Security Cabinet has approved the most sweeping changes
to the West Bank's legal status since 1967, removing nearly all
constraints on settlement expansion. Netanyahu himself declared:
There will never be a Palestinian state.
And I say that to some people here who still say: Well, we are in
favor of a two-state solution.
That is not Mr. Netanyahu's position. He said:
``There will never be a Palestinian state.''
His Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, bragged that new settlement
construction in the West Bank would ``bury''--that is his word--
``bury'' the idea of a Palestinian state.
But it is not just Gaza and the West Bank. We now know that Netanyahu
convinced President Trump to start an unprovoked and unconstitutional
war on Iran.
For 40 years--for 40 years--Netanyahu had wanted the United States to
participate with Israel in a war against Iran, and, finally, after 40
years of effort, he finally found in Trump a President willing to go
along.
He couldn't get Democratic Presidents in the past and couldn't get
Republicans in the past. In Trump, he finally found a President willing
to go along.
This war, in violation of international law, has resulted already in
the deaths of thousands of civilians, including hundreds of children in
Iran and Lebanon, including 26 Israeli civilians who are now dead and
13 American soldiers who have lost their lives so far in this conflict.
All over the world, certainly including the United States, hundreds
of millions of innocent people are suffering the economic consequences
of this war, with higher prices and growing scarcity of basic goods.
I believe that in Vermont, now, the price of regular gas is about $4
a gallon, and in parts of the country, it is even higher than that.
But for Netanyahu, Gaza was not enough. Attacking Iran was not
enough. Netanyahu is now waging a full-blown war of expansion against
Lebanon. That war in Lebanon has not only killed more than 2,000 people
but has resulted in Israel occupying 14 percent of Lebanese territory.
Let me repeat that. The war in Lebanon has not only killed more than
2,000 people but has resulted in Israel occupying 14 percent of
Lebanese territory.
The Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz, has announced that all
Lebanese border villages will be demolished--will be demolished--his
exact words, following ``the model in Gaza''--demolish border villages.
Bezalel Smotrich, the Finance Minister, has warned that Dahieh, a
suburb of South Beirut, will look like Khan Yunis, a city in Gaza that
Israel reduced to rubble.
In other words, what they did in Gaza is now what they intend to do
in parts of Lebanon. And these are not threats. They are promises.
For all of the reasons that I have given and more--and you are going
to hear more from some of my colleagues, in a few moments--support for
Israel in this country has plummeted. Today, according to a recent Pew
poll, 80 percent of Democrats now have an unfavorable opinion of
Israel, and 41 percent of Republicans share that view.
And the numbers in all parties, among young people, are even higher.
Young people, whether they are young Democrats, progressives, or
conservatives, do not want us to continue to fund the horrific war
policies of Netanyahu.
A recent Quinnipiac poll also found that 60 percent--including three-
quarters of Democrats, two-thirds of Independents, and 37 percent of
Republicans--I say that to my Republican
[[Page S1776]]
colleagues: 37 percent of Republicans do not want the U.S. sending more
military aid to Israel.
And that is why I am offering, today, two joint resolutions of
disapproval, the only formal mechanism Congress has to block an arms
sale.
The first resolution would block the sale of $151 million in 1,000-
pound bombs. The second would block $295 million in bulldozers, the
machines used to demolish homes in the West Bank and Gaza and make a
Palestinian state physically impossible.
The time is long overdue for Members of the U.S. Senate to start
listening to the American people and not to AIPAC. The time is now for
us to end all U.S. military aid to the extremist Netanyahu government,
and a ``yes'' vote is an important way forward.
Mr. President, with that, I yield to my colleague from Maryland,
Senator Chris Van Hollen.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the two
resolutions offered by my colleague Senator Sanders that would bar the
transfer of certain offensive weapons and equipment to the Netanyahu
government.
Specifically, these resolutions would block the transfer of 12,000
1,000-pound bombs and 132 armored bulldozers, valued at more than $446
million and funded entirely by American taxpayers.
We cannot continue to provide a blank check to the Netanyahu
government as it continues to use U.S. weapons in violation of U.S. and
international law.
As I have long said, Israel was justified in its war against Hamas
after the horrific attack of October 7, 2023. But the Netanyahu
government is not justified in imposing collective punishment on all
the people of Gaza.
As Senator Merkley and I wrote in our report after traveling to the
region in August 2025, ``The Netanyahu Government is Implementing a
Plan to Ethnically Cleanse Gaza of Palestinians. America is
Complicit.''
And now, as Senator Sanders indicated, Israeli leaders are saying out
loud they plan to apply the same plans in southern Lebanon as they
implemented in Gaza.
Senator Sanders mentioned threatening what they did in Khan Yunis. As
recently as March 31, Israeli Defense Minister Katz said:
All homes in Lebanese villages near the border will be
destroyed--in accordance with the Rafah and Beit Hanoun model
in Gaza.
Well, colleagues, I visited Gaza. I visited the Gaza crossing--the
Rafah crossing--twice, along with my colleague Senator Merkley, first
in January 2024, when Gaza's population had quadrupled from prewar
levels to more than 1 million people who had been displaced within
Gaza, from northern Gaza.
And then we traveled to the Rafah crossing, in August 2025, after the
IDF's offensive against Rafah, one that the Biden administration
claimed that they tried to stop. And on that visit, Senator Merkley and
I climbed a rooftop, and you could look into Rafah--obliterated,
reduced to absolute rubble.
And as we were told by former IDF soldiers--eyewitnesses who had the
courage to speak with us--Israel has systematically dismantled
essential infrastructure and brought near-total destruction of civilian
sites throughout Gaza, including through the use of these bulldozers
and 1,000-pound bombs. And now the Israeli Minister of Defense says
they are going to do the same thing in southern Lebanon.
And, indeed, since the war in Lebanon restarted, Israeli forces have
killed over 2,000 people, including 250 people in 10 minutes, the day
after the cease-fire was announced. Entire villages have been destroyed
and over 1.1 million people displaced.
Now, let's not forget how we got into this most recent round of
destruction in the region. President Trump is fully responsible for
getting America into this war, period.
But we know from Trump administration officials and public reporting
how Prime Minister Netanyahu, for his own reasons, was pushing Trump to
attack Iran. Indeed, he said it himself on April 11. Netanyahu boasted
to the Israeli public that Israel was ``first to act because we knew
what was at stake. But if I had told you a year ago that our pilots,
men and women, would fly in Iran, who would have believed it?'' So said
Prime Minister Netanyahu.
He went on to say:
If I had told you a year ago that the United States of
America, the strongest power in the world, would fight by our
side, shoulder to shoulder, wing to wing, for nearly 40 days
against the common enemy, who would have believed it?
And then Prime Minister Netanyahu went on to say:
All this happened because we initiated, we acted, we
attacked.
Now, those of us who have been around here a little while know that
Prime Minister Netanyahu has been pushing for a war with Iran for a
very long time. In fact, he recently publicly acknowledged that the
current U.S.-Israeli war on Iran ``allows us to do what I have been
hoping to do for 40 years.''
That is what Prime Minister Netanyahu said.
I remember when Prime Minister Netanyahu actually spoke before a
joint session of Congress, asking us not to support the JCPOA, which,
of course, prevented Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
Of course, the current President then tore that up when he first came
into office.
So Prime Minister Netanyahu had been trying to get previous
Presidents to join him in attacking Iran, but no previous President was
stupid enough or reckless enough to actually do it.
So here we are without facing any imminent threat, and President
Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu started an illegal war against Iran.
It is a gross violation of international law. Indeed, on April 2, a
group of over 100 international law experts, people who actually
believe in international law, which included former U.S. and U.N.
officials, published an open letter stating that ``the initiation of
the campaign was a clear violation of the United Nations Charter'' and
that the conduct of the United States and Israeli forces in the war
``raise serious concerns about violations of international human rights
and international humanitarian law, including potential war crimes.''
That is on top of the illegality of initiating a war against Iran.
Look, earlier this afternoon, nearly all Democrats voted together to
end Donald Trump's illegal war against Iran. Many of us have vowed that
we will not support 1 taxpayer dollar to continue this war that is
making us less safe and less well-loved.
Well, that commitment and determination should apply to the Trump
administration and to the Netanyahu administration. We need to rein in
Trump in this illegal war, and we need to rein in the Netanyahu
administration in this illegal war.
Now, colleagues, I want to focus for a moment on the portion of the
Sanders resolution that bans the transfer of bulldozers to the IDF.
These are the bulldozers that helped raze Rafah in Gaza to the ground.
For those who don't remember, I ask them to recall the case of Rachel
Corrie, a 23-year-old American peace activist who was killed by an
Israeli bulldozer while trying to block the razing of buildings in
Rafah over 20 years ago. Rachel Corrie has never gotten any justice,
and her family will tell you that today.
In fact, just since January of 2022, at least nine more American
citizens have been killed by extremist Israeli settlers or security
forces in the West Bank. Not one of them--not one--has gotten justice,
just like Rachel Corrie--no accountability.
There is no piece of equipment that has helped Israel and the
Netanyahu government destroy civilian infrastructure in the West Bank
and Gaza and now Lebanon more than the bulldozer.
Just look at the titles of some of the reporting coming from what is
happening in southern Lebanon. The Guardian title: `` `Everything is
gone.' Israel destroys entire villages in Lebanon.''
And you can see it for yourself. I really encourage my colleagues
just to look at the videos. Some of them have been shared by members of
the Israeli military themselves. They showed controlled detonations and
destruction of entire villages.
[[Page S1777]]
This isn't new. During the last war in Lebanon, Amnesty International
documented how the Israeli military carried out extensive and
deliberate destruction of civilian property across almost the entire
Lebanese border with Israel, including 10,000 structures, primarily
through the use of manually laid explosives and bulldozers.
In the West Bank, as we speak, we are seeing violent Israeli settlers
kill Palestinian citizens with impunity. We are also seeing the use of
these bulldozers to demolish Palestinian homes in the West Bank and
other civilian infrastructures. Again, you can see it for yourselves in
the videos.
This is all part of a slow-motion ethnic cleansing effort in the West
Bank and de facto annexation of the West Bank. Indeed, the New York
Times in September 2024 spoke about raids in the West Bank villages of
Tulkarm and Jenin. The headline is this: ``Israeli Bulldozers Flatten
Mile After Mile in the West Bank.'' In total, since the Gaza war
started, Israeli authorities have demolished at least 4,900 structures
in the West Bank and displaced 9,000 Palestinians there.
As this has gone on, so has settler violence, often with the
complicity of the IDF. In the West Bank, over 1,000 Palestinians,
including 230 children, have been killed with virtual impunity since
October of 2023--with impunity. The Israeli human rights organization
Yesh Din said that between 2000 and September 2025--that is a 20-year
period--more than 93 percent of police investigations into settler
violence in the West Bank concluded without an indictment.
So what are we going to do about this? We need to stop providing the
Netanyahu government with an absolute blank check. We need to demand
accountability for American citizens who have been killed there.
So I urge my colleagues now to support this resolution. If we want to
rein in a Trump administration that wants an illegal war against Iran,
we should also rein in the Netanyahu administration. It is doing
exactly the same thing with American taxpayer dollars.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Oregon Mr.
Merkley.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, on February 28, in coordination with and
at the urging of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Trump
attacked Iran without congressional authorization--that is, without the
authority required under our Constitution. Almost immediately,
Hezbollah, Iran's proxy, engaged in a battle with Israel. Now we have
Israel invading southern Lebanon.
The Netanyahu government is exercising the same strategy they pursued
in Gaza: Drop massive bombs, level entire towns, block routes for
civilians to leave, and block access for humanitarian relief.
And the United States? We are partners in this. We are complicit in
this--not just because we partnered with Israel to ignite the war with
Iran but because we sold the bombs and the bulldozers that Israel is
using. We didn't stop supplying the Netanyahu government with weapons
years ago even when it became clear that they were deliberately
targeting homes, schools, and hospitals; when they were blocking
deliveries of humanitarian aid, including water, food, and medicine;
when the result was mass malnutrition, particularly among mothers and
children and the elderly.
We must not continue to be complicit in these tragedies by selling
these tools of destruction--the bombs and the bulldozers--to Israel.
The administration says: Let's sell them 12,000 more 1,000-pound
bombs.
Picture 12,000 1,000-pound bombs dropping on neighborhoods--that is
what we are enabling--or a vast number of bulldozers to destroy homes
and buildings. We have seen it in the West Bank--homes and villages
bulldozed, ancient olive groves bulldozed--and now we are seeing it in
Lebanon, with the Netanyahu government bragging about doing the same
thing to Lebanon they did to Gaza: Make it uninhabitable.
Let's be clear. Bulldozers are not defensive weapons.
Recent satellite images of southern Lebanon show the Netanyahu
government flattening towns, destroying bridges, cutting off civilian
movement, and cutting off humanitarian access in a replay of the
destruction we saw in Gaza, not to mention the Netanyahu government has
supported settlers in their expansion, massive expansion, of outposts
and settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank, in their mass
increase in construction of homes and villages, and most disturbing of
all, supporting the settlers in their violent attacks on Palestinian
communities--all of this in the goal of creating a greater Israel by
destroying any prospect of a Palestinian state.
Let's not forget, as my colleague from Maryland mentioned, it was a
bulldozer operated by the Israeli Defense Forces that killed American
citizen Rachel Corrie in Rafah in 2003--the first of 14 Americans
citizens who have been killed by Israeli soldiers since then.
Approving this sale of the bombs and bulldozers deepens our
responsibility for these tragedies and for the suffering.
Colleagues, when we became Senators, we swore an oath to take on the
responsibilities designated to Congress in the Constitution, including
the question of war.
As Madison summarized: The Constitution supposes what the history of
all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power
most interested in war and most prone to it. Thus, the Constitution has
accordingly, with studied care, vested the question of war in the
legislature.
That is the Constitution we swore an oath to, and it is the
Constitution that President Trump violated by launching a war without
congressional authorization.
In 1973, during the Vietnam war, Congress approved the War Powers Act
to, in their words, ``fulfill the intent of the Framers of the
Constitution'' and rein in the President from waging wars without
congressional approval.
The War Powers Act does allow the President to respond to an imminent
threat that is ``a national emergency created by an attack upon the
United States, its territories, possessions, or its Armed Forces.'' But
in this case, no such condition existed and thus the violation of the
Constitution.
Yet, earlier today, my colleagues across the aisle voted to allow the
President to continue to violate the law and violate the Constitution.
When will we say enough is enough?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 minute to
close.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, let us today, all 100 Senators, uphold
our oath to the Constitution. The indiscriminate use of American bombs
in Iran and Lebanon and Gaza that targets civilians and infrastructure
by Israel must end. We should not sell these bulldozers and these bombs
to Israel.
I urge my colleagues to vote for these two joint resolutions of
disapproval.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise tonight in support of Senator
Sanders' joint resolutions of disapproval for select arms sales to
Israel. The Senate has voted on similar resolutions in the past, all of
which I have supported. The last time this Chamber voted on prior
resolutions, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was bombarding Gaza. A
cease-fire had collapsed, hostage release negotiations had stalled, and
innocent children and families in Gaza were starving and
suffering. That was because the Netanyahu government, fueled by
extremist Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir and Finance
Minister Smotrich and supported by the Trump administration, was
blocking humanitarian aid from reaching Palestinians in Gaza. The
large-scale bombs covered by those resolutions went far beyond what
Israel needed for its defense. Their use would cause indiscriminate
damage and only worsen the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
Now, the need for restrictions on military aid to Netanyahu has only
taken on renewed urgency. The Trump administration is proposing to sell
to Netanyahu 1,000-pound bombs and armored bulldozers that Netanyahu
could
[[Page S1778]]
use not only in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon but also in Trump's
illegal and unnecessary war in Iran. I fully support the current cease-
fire with Iran, but tenuous as it may be, Vice President JD Vance's bid
for a peace deal in Pakistan last weekend failed, and fighting could
resume at any time.
So make no mistake, a vote to approve arms sales to Israel at this
time would be seen as a message of approval for Trump and Netanyahu's
disastrous war against Iran. I will not send that message. Trump's war
of choice in Iran is a moral tragedy and economic disaster playing out
before our eyes. It is only making the United States, Israel, and the
world less safe.
Let us count the ways:
One, we have seen thousands of civilian deaths in Iran and Lebanon.
More than 100 Iranian schoolgirls have been killed by American weapons,
and 13 American servicemembers have been killed and hundreds injured.
Two, the United States and the Netanyahu government are losing
credibility. In particular, President Trump's threats of war crimes and
genocide against Iran are a total abdication of moral leadership on the
global stage and must be opposed here and everywhere.
Three, the United States and Iran are blockading the Strait of
Hormuz--crippling the global economy and sending energy prices sky
high.
Four, gas prices in America are $1.20 a gallon higher than before the
war. Vehicle owners will be paying $500 to $600 more here in the United
States over the course of this next year. It is going to be Trump at
the pump. The American people are going to be paying for this war.
Five, this dangerous, unnecessary, and expensive war has cost the
American taxpayer about $50 billion so far, with the Trump
administration seeking hundreds of billions of dollars more as part of
a $1.5 trillion military budget, which must be rejected.
Six, Iran still controls its uranium.
Seven, there has been no regime change. We just swapped out one
Ayatollah for another.
And, eight, Iranians are still not free.
Why would we send American military weapons that could prolong,
escalate, or worsen this horrible situation in the Middle East?
I say no more. The Senate should express its opposition to Trump and
Netanyahu's needless war and seek to stop it.
No. 1, we should pass these resolutions to block 1,000-pound bombs
and armored bulldozers for use in this war.
No. 2, we should pass a War Powers Resolution that denies President
Trump the authority to continue this war.
And, No. 3, we should reject any request for funding to pay for
Trump's war of choice.
Today, we must send a clear message that the U.S. Senate opposes--in
the strongest possible terms--Trump and Netanyahu's dangerous,
expensive, unnecessary, and immoral war.
There is no military solution to this crisis. We must solve this at
the negotiating table. We must end this war now. We must pass these
resolutions in order to have the U.S. Senate speak to our outrage at
what is happening in the name of the American people.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Justice). The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise in support of Senator Sanders'
resolutions. I will be voting for both of them.
On February 21, 2024, I wrote a public letter to President Biden, and
I said: The Hamas attack on Israel is devastating and Israel faces
threats from other adversaries in the region and we should help Israel
defend its civilians, but we should do so only by providing defensive
weapons to Israel and not offensive weapons.
Why defensive weapons?
We have long been a security partner of Israel. Those who follow the
relationship understand there are threats to Israeli civilians that are
very present because of actors in the region like Hezbollah, Hamas, and
the Houthis; and Iran and Iranian-backed militias and Israeli civilians
do face threats that warrant the United States providing defensive
support.
But I took the public position more than 2 years ago now that it
would be wrong to send offensive weapons to Israel, and that position
was based on exactly the same reason, to protect civilians--protect
Palestinian civilians, protect Lebanese civilians--to protect
civilians. Offensive weapons delivered to Israel in the way they are
using them, particularly bombs, are guaranteed to cause mass civilian
suffering. That is what has happened in Gaza, and that is what is
happening in Lebanon.
Anyone who has paid attention to this region just has to answer this
question: Is more civilian death going to get us to the right place?
This is a region that has been replete with the deaths of civilians,
and the U.S. taxpayer and this body should not be pouring gasoline or
adding tinder to a fire where more and more civilians are in jeopardy.
So, since that public letter to President Biden, I have supported
Senator Sanders and other resolutions before. If weapons are offensive
in nature, the United States shouldn't be transferring them, and I will
support the resolutions for that matter. We need to protect civilians.
We don't need to pour gasoline on a fire in the region and accelerate
more deaths of civilians.
I have received some outreach about this particular vote from some
who say this is a vote to deny all military aid to Israel. That is not
what this vote is about. This is about denying particular weapons that
are offensive in nature.
Just to give you an order of magnitude, during this term of Congress,
the President has noticed 27 different arms transfers to Israel; and
with these two joint resolutions of disapproval, we have challenged 6--
6 of those 27 arms transfers--as being offensive in nature. We have not
challenged 21 of the arms transfers that are primarily defensive in
nature. There has not been a single Senator who has brought up a
challenge to the defensive arms sales because we want to protect
civilian lives; but when weapons like this that are offensive in nature
are guaranteed to lead to the deaths of civilians, I think it is
appropriate to challenge them, and that is why I am going to support
these resolutions.
I have also had some say that, if these resolutions succeed, the
United States is reducing its support for Israeli defense. That is also
not true. The support for Israeli defense is the result of a 10-year
memorandum of understanding that has an annual allocation for Israeli
defense that has been supplemented by a supplemental bill that was
passed by this body in April of 2024. That amount of money, which is an
annual allocation, gets drawn down by these transfers.
I would urge my colleagues to support the cessation of offensive
weapons transfers. If this bill succeeds, it doesn't reduce support for
Israeli defense by a single penny. It just means that Israel should
request and the United States should consider transferring defensive
weapons to enable Israel to defend its own civilians but not to carry
out military action that would harm other civilians.
The principle of ``let's just stop the damage to civilians in the
region'' seems to me to be overwhelming. If the deaths of civilians
were accomplishing anything, we would have seen that accomplishment
long before now. So stopping the transfer of offensive weapons seems to
me to be the right thing to do not just for the United States security
interests and the safety of our servicemembers in the region, but it is
also the right thing to do to promote regional stability and the
security of Israel.
For that reason, I will vote for the resolutions, and I appreciate my
colleague for introducing them.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me thank Senator Van Hollen, Senator
Merkley, Senator Markey, Senator Kaine, and, before that, Senator Kelly
for their remarks.
The American people increasingly are sick and tired of spending
billions of dollars in support of illegal, horrific military actions on
the part of the Netanyahu government. We have spent tens of billions of
dollars already. Gaza has been destroyed--10 percent of the population
dead or wounded. Netanyahu got Trump into a war in Iran. Thousands of
civilians are now dead, including many children, and now Netanyahu is
at war in Lebanon--thousands of civilians dead, civilian neighborhoods
bombed, a million people displaced from their homes, and 14
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percent of Lebanese territory occupied by Israel.
What the American people are saying is: Enough is enough.
By the way, this is bipartisan. It is not just Democrats, and it is
not just Independents. It is a significant number of Republicans who
remember President Trump talking about ``America First'' and talking
about the need to invest in this country, not in bombs and bulldozers
to destroy people in the Middle East.
With that, I would hope that we would have a very strong vote in
support of these resolutions to tell Netanyahu and to tell the world
that enough is enough.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, as everyone in this Chamber knows, Israel
is one of the closest allies in the Middle East. No one can discount
the fact that without Israel and President Trump's maximum pressure
campaign, Iran would have nuclear weapons, would still be exporting
terror throughout the region, and would still pose a significant
military threat to its neighbors and, indeed, to a good share of the
rest of the world.
Unlike some of our other allies, Israel has stood side by side with
the United States, working hand in glove to advance our shared
objectives and to keep American citizens safe. Passing these two
resolutions would embolden our adversary Iran and call into question
American reliability in the region. Refusing to send help to allies and
to sell weapons to allies would be incredibly debilitating to our
ability to work together. It would send the message that the United
States is prepared to leave our ally Israel vulnerable to further
Iranian attacks and put the tens of thousands of Americans who are
living there at risk. This is not acceptable.
Again, I come to the floor and tell Iran: No one is coming to help
you, not China, not Russia, not North Korea, not Venezuela, not Cuba--
except for the 47 people that sit over here. They are trying to help
you, Iran.
We are not going to let that happen. We are not going to abandon our
ally Israel. We are not going to abandon the fight that is taking
place. We are going to win this fight and have already won it, to a
very large extent.
Let us not forget the Iranian regime has been exporting terrorism and
chanting ``Death to America'' and ``Death to Israel'' consistently
since the founding of this regime 47 years ago. Enough is enough.
It is time to continue this until we get to the end. This is not
going to be a forever war. The country of Iran is very badly
debilitated right now. I would hope that common sense prevails and they
reach an agreement with the administration and get to a permanent
cease-fire.
I would urge all of my colleagues: Oppose these resolutions. They
will not help the United States of America.
Vote on Motion to Discharge
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question occurs
on agreeing to the motion to discharge S.J. Res. 32.
Mr. RISCH. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the
Senator from Wyoming (Ms. Lummis).
The result was announced--yeas 40, nays 59, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 80 Leg.]
YEAS--40
Alsobrooks
Baldwin
Bennet
Blunt Rochester
Booker
Cantwell
Duckworth
Durbin
Gallego
Hassan
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
Kim
King
Klobuchar
Lujan
Markey
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Ossoff
Padilla
Peters
Reed
Sanders
Schatz
Schiff
Shaheen
Slotkin
Smith
Van Hollen
Warner
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--59
Armstrong
Banks
Barrasso
Blackburn
Blumenthal
Boozman
Britt
Budd
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Coons
Cornyn
Cortez Masto
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Ernst
Fetterman
Fischer
Gillibrand
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven
Husted
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Justice
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Marshall
McConnell
McCormick
Moody
Moran
Moreno
Murkowski
Paul
Ricketts
Risch
Rosen
Rounds
Schmitt
Schumer
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sheehy
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Wicker
Young
NOT VOTING--1
Lummis
The motion was rejected.
Vote on Motion to Discharge
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question occurs
on agreeing to the motion to discharge S.J. Res. 138.
Mr. BARRASSO. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the
Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).
The result was announced--yeas 36, nays 63, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 81 Leg.]
YEAS--36
Alsobrooks
Baldwin
Bennet
Blunt Rochester
Booker
Cantwell
Duckworth
Durbin
Gallego
Hassan
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
Kim
King
Klobuchar
Lujan
Markey
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Ossoff
Padilla
Sanders
Schatz
Schiff
Shaheen
Slotkin
Smith
Van Hollen
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Wyden
NAYS--63
Armstrong
Banks
Barrasso
Blackburn
Blumenthal
Boozman
Britt
Budd
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Coons
Cornyn
Cortez Masto
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Ernst
Fetterman
Fischer
Gillibrand
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven
Husted
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Justice
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
McConnell
McCormick
Moody
Moran
Moreno
Murkowski
Paul
Peters
Reed
Ricketts
Risch
Rosen
Rounds
Schmitt
Schumer
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sheehy
Sullivan
Thune
Tuberville
Warner
Whitehouse
Wicker
Young
NOT VOTING--1
Tillis
The motion was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Unanimous Consent Agreement
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I move that, for the remainder of the
votes this evening, all votes be limited to 17 minutes and, at the end
of 17 minutes, voting automatically expire ipso facto without any
discretion whatsoever.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The majority leader.
____________________