Pro-Israel House Democrats are caught in an uncomfortable political position: voting against additional funding to Israel they’ve been advocating for, with extremely dim hopes for a bipartisan plan to even make it out of the Senate.
In total, 166 Democrats voted against House Speaker Mike Johnson’s stand-alone bill for $17 billion in military funding to Israel brought to the floor Tuesday, and 46 voted in favor. While House Democratic leadership all urged colleagues to vote no, other House Democrats confirmed to NOTUS that there was no official whip being done to keep the party united.
The bill’s collapse came as part of a nightlong debacle for House Republicans, coming directly after a failed attempt to impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The twin failures put Republicans in the spotlight, but the Israel funding has also left some Democrats squirming. The pro-Israel Democrats who didn’t vote for the funding said their vote came down to the bill’s lack of humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza, and ultimately the concern that passing Israel money alone would take away any chance of passing funds to Ukraine as well.