Using American aid to exert diplomatic pressure on Israel is widely considered an extreme and drastic measure. In the early 1990s, when President George H. W. Bush demanded that Israel freeze construction in the settlements as a condition for US guarantees for a $10 billion loan that Israel sought to help it absorb a wave of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, the earth shook and the right-wing government collapsed. But the possible use of military aid (the economic aid was stopped in 2008) as a pressure tactic on Israel was always the province of marginal elements in the American political arena. Both parties viewed US support for Israel’s defense as a sacred cow. That all went by the wayside last week.
Two leading Democratic contenders for the presidency, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, announced that as far as they were concerned, the cow was no longer sacred. Addressing the annual J Street conference on Oct. 29, Sanders proposed conditioning the aid on a change in Israel’s Palestinian policies and shifting part of the $3.8 billion US aid package to humanitarian relief for the Gaza Strip’s two million residents. Warren cited the precedent set by Bush of linking US guarantees to Israeli construction across the Green Line.