House Democrats Vote to Cut Israel Aid as Internal Divide Widens

More than a hundred House Democrats voted last week to cut off military aid to Israel. The vote marked a fracture in the party over support for the Jewish state that would have been almost unimaginable five years ago. It also threatens to split Republicans, according to a New Yorker account of the Biden administration's handling of the war in Gaza.

A stark divide emerged among Biden's closest advisers. A few argued there had been "no shortcut" that might have returned the hostages held by Hamas and ended the war without the devastation of Gaza. Others expressed deep regrets. They said they should have put more pressure on Israel to avoid killing so many civilians. They accepted at face value repeated Israeli assurances that the war was nearly over. They too often held back from squeezing Israel because they feared it might jeopardize a potential ceasefire that always seemed imminent, yet kept slipping away. And they never escaped a "moral hazard" that invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to provoke Iran by demonstrating that, after each escalation, the U.S. would shoulder the burden of his country's defense.

Jon Finer, Biden's deputy national security adviser, told the New Yorker that for both Hamas and Israel, "civilian harm was not a side effect but part of the strategy." The U.S., he added, "shouldn't tolerate wars in which civilian harm is a goal, and shouldn't allow our weapons to be used for that purpose."