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April 23rd, 2021 
Awake Goy Rep. Betty McCollum’s historic new bill was just introduced and it already has 15 cosponsors. At our site, Josh Ruebner refers to it as “the most extensive legislative effort ever introduced in Congress to end US complicity in the human rights violations endemic to Israeli military occupation.” Those 15 cosponsors are all the names you’d expect so far. The Squad and all the Squad adjacent members. So what are the chances that other progressive voices are pulled in?
Today Jewish Insider reports that 330 members of congress just sent a letter to the House Appropriations Committee calling for no conditions on military aid to Israel. The letter (which is led by Reps. Ted Deutch and Michael McCaul) is being promoted by AIPAC.
“Congress is committed to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge and its ability to defend itself, by itself, against persistent threats,” reads the letter. “Our aid to Israel is a vital and cost-effective expenditure which advances important U.S. national security interests in a highly challenging region. For decades, Presidents of both parties have understood the strategic importance of providing Israel with security assistance.”
The letter features signatures from multiple progressive lawmakers: Rep. Mondaire Jones, Rep. Andy Levin, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Rep. Alan Lowenthal, and Rep. Ro Khanna.
Khanna has become a symbol of progressive foreign policy for good reason. He led the fight to restrict Trump’s war powers and has pushed for an end to the war on Yemen. However, we’re confronted with another “Except for Palestine” situation. He cosponsored 2019’s anti-BDS resolution. He was also a cosponsor of Betty McCollum’s original child detention bill back in 2017, but didn’t sign on to the newer (stronger) version. He criticized AOC for dropping out that Yitzhak Rabin event. “I think of Israel, at its best, as a fountain for human innovation, for civilizational progress, for contributing to the world of arts and literature and philosophy,” he said earlier this year.
What politicians actually believe isn’t especially important, but one wonders whether Khanna’s heart is actually in any of this stuff. In March 2020, he sent a letter to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo opposing home demolitions in Jerusalem and calling for an investigation into whether Israel had violated the Arms Export Control Act. McCollum’s new bill actually addresses this issue directly. Khanna also circulated Nathan Thrall’s monumental “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama” among congressional colleagues earlier this month.
It will be interesting to see where lawmakers like Khanna end up landing on these issues in coming months. The contours of these debates are being resized rather rapidly and having it both ways doesn’t seem politically sustainable.
Last month Khanna told Jewish Insider that his opposition to BDS is “probably the thing I’ve been most criticized for on social media in my five years in Congress.” I suspect such criticisms will only increase.
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