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Ending U.S. military aid<\/span> to Israel is now the mainstream position among Democratic leaders.<\/p>\n In a historic Senate vote<\/a> on Wednesday, all but seven members of the Democratic caucus voted for at least one of two resolutions to block the sale of bombs and bulldozers to Israel\u2019s military. Other prominent Democrats and potential 2028 presidential candidates, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez<\/a>, D-N.Y.; Ro Khanna<\/a>, D-Calif.; and former Obama aide Rahm Emanuel<\/a> have recently said the U.S. should halt all military aid to Israel for offensive and so-called defensive weapons.\u00a0<\/p>\n The idea of steering public funding to those responsible for the genocide in Gaza has plummeted in popularity, with polls<\/a> consistently show a majority<\/a> of Americans now oppose sending weapons to Israel. As Americans struggle with affordability amid the joint U.S.\u2013Israel war on Iran<\/a>, skepticism about military aid for Israel has only grown.<\/p>\n Yet amid this shift, a quieter debate is stirring in the American left over how far Democrats should go in blocking weapons to Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n For anti-Zionist organizers, the goal<\/a> has long been a total arms embargo<\/a>. That wouldn\u2019t just bring to an end U.S. public spending to support Israel\u2019s military, but would also halt the commercial sale of weapons from U.S. companies to Israel\u2019s government. Advocates for the embargo, which includes Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; Summer Lee, D-Pa.; and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., view the policy as the most effective means in halting Israel\u2019s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and its human rights abuses in the West Bank, Lebanon, and Iran. Doing so, they say, would bring the U.S. into compliance with its own laws<\/a> governing weapons transfers<\/a> and human rights.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, pro-Israel Democrats are beginning to speak out about holding Israel accountable for its abuses, but seek narrower arms restrictions that would still allow commercial weapons sales as a means to maintain Israel\u2019s friendly relationship with the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n On Monday, J Street, an influential liberal Zionist lobbying group<\/a>, released a memo<\/a> outlining a significant shift in policy. Echoing growing demands to end Israel\u2019s \u201cblank check support from the United States,\u201d J Street is urging legislators to\u00a0instead make the Israeli government pay for U.S. weapons using its own funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s a major departure for the self-described \u201cpro-Israel, pro-peace\u201d group, which had previously opposed a ceasefire in Gaza and backed Israel\u2019s aggression in Gaza in the early months of the genocide. Since November 2024, J Street has supported a series<\/a> of Senate resolutions<\/a> introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. meant to block weapons transfers, including Wednesday\u2019s joint resolutions of disapproval. But those measures focused on halting only the transfer of offensive weapons to Israel, such as bombs and firearms. J Street\u2019s new policy memo calls for an end to government spending on both offensive and so-called defensive weapons, or missile interceptor systems, which power Israel\u2019s Iron Dome. It\u2019s a position that until recent months even Ocasio-Cortez and Khanna had not embraced.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Citing existing U.S.<\/span> law, J Street\u2019s memo calls for an end to providing Israel $3.3 billion in State Department funds to purchase U.S. weapons, along with $500 million earmarked within the Department of Defense for anti-missile systems.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we want to be doing is laying the groundwork for the next president to have the political backing to do the right thing to implement the right policies when they come into office in 2029,\u201d Hannah Morris, vice president of government affairs for J Street, told The Intercept.<\/p>\n J Street\u2019s position runs short of a complete arms embargo in that it would still allow Israel to purchase interceptor weaponry from U.S. companies. The group said the exception for anti-missile systems is meant to protect civilians in Israel. Critics say Israel\u2019s defense systems enable the country to carry out its expanding wars in the Middle East without consequence. In addition, the new J Street memo calls for the U.S. to maintain \u201ca strong security partnership with Israel,\u201d including the sharing of intelligence and collaborating on researching and developing new military equipment when mutually beneficial to American interests. \u201cThey cannot become a backdoor for continued US subsidies to Israeli defense,\u201d J Street wrote in its memo.\u00a0<\/p>\n J Street acknowledged its new position is partly intended to address the growing antipathy toward Israel among Americans. A Pew Research Center poll<\/a> from earlier this month showed that a record high 60 percent of American adults have an unfavorable view of Israel, including 80 percent of all Democrats aged 18 and older and more than half of all younger Republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPart of having this policy is to remove some of the discomfort that some of the American population has with the exceptionality of the relationship\u201d between the U.S. and Israel, Morris said. \u201cAnd that can lower the temperature or lack of sympathy for the Israelis versus Palestinians.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Advocates for a total arms embargo view J Street\u2019s evolution as a sign of mounting pressure amid the swing in American public opinion. \u201cThat did not just happen out of the blue,\u201d said Beth Miller, policy director for Jewish Voice for Peace Action.\u201cIt\u2019s the result of movement organizing for years and years.\u201d<\/p>\n Some arms embargo supporters questioned the timing of J Street\u2019s new position and whether it will hinder efforts to halt Israel\u2019s expansionist wars. Yousef Munayyer, a longtime advocate of a total arms embargo on Israel, wondered whether the J Street memo could offer political cover for certain Democrats seeking to thread the needle by taking a stance against Israel\u2019s abuses without suffering blowback from pro-Israel constituents.<\/p>\n Instead, Munayyer, who heads the Palestine\/Israel Program at Arab Center Washington D.C., said now is not the moment to give up ground.\u00a0\u201cThere has never been a more defensible moment for Democrats to take such a position on an arms embargo, and it seems completely unnecessary for this hyper-calibrated messaging,\u201d he said, referring to J Street\u2019s policy position. \u201cMaybe in a couple of districts and a couple of states, it may be useful, but in the broader sense the public has moved on, especially in the Democratic base.\u201d<\/p>\n Disagreement between J Street and Palestinian rights organizers is not new in Washington. Some advocates for Palestine continue to condemn the group for opposing a ceasefire resolution<\/a> in 2023, which opponents say helped pave the way for Israel\u2019s genocide. Even before Israel\u2019s war on Gaza, the group has been criticized for not taking strong enough positions on blocking weapons to Israel, including a bill in 2021 that sought to prohibit Israel from using U.S. aid to demolish Palestinian homes and annex Palestinian land in the West Bank. While J Street endorsed the bill, the group drew criticism from Palestinian rights groups who claim it didn\u2019t do enough to drum up support<\/a> with rank-and-file Democratic members.\u00a0<\/p>\n Morris said arms embargo advocates who are critical of J Street\u2019s new policy memo \u201cwant to go from zero to one hundred in a way that I think is not only unrealistic but untenable.\u201d She also questioned whether most Americans knew the definition of an arms embargo and suggested that, if given the full picture, fewer would support the premise.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n