Dahlia Scheindlin
On May 8, the Biden administration confirmed that it was withholding a major weapons shipment to the Israel Defense Forces. It was the biggest step that the United States has taken in decades to restrain Israel’s actions. The decision concerned a consignment of 2,000-pound bombs—weapons that the United States generally avoids in urban warfare, and which White House officials believed that Israel would use in its Rafah operation in the Gaza Strip—and did not affect other weapons transfers. Nonetheless, the administration’s willingness to employ measures that could materially constrain Israel’s behavior reflected its growing frustration with Israel’s nearly eight-month-old war in Gaza.
But the announcement also underscored something else: the growing partisan divide within the United States over Israel. For months, some Democratic leaders in Congress and many Democratic voters felt that the administration was far too indulgent of Israel’s conduct in the war, which they believe it enabled with overwhelming military, financial, and political support. On the other side, Biden’s decision on the bombs was excoriated by dozens of Republican members of Congress, who have called him a “pawn for Hamas” and a “terrible friend to Israel.” On May 19, Republican Representative Elise Stefanik, of New York, went further, traveling to Jerusalem and publicly denouncing Biden’s policy in a meeting with a caucus of the Israeli Knesset.
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