Senate Passes Bill That Rebukes Trump and Opposes Israel Boycott
WASHINGTON — The Senate overwhelmingly approved a Middle East policy bill on Tuesday that included both a rebuke to President Trump over his withdrawal of troops from Syria and Afghanistan and a contested measure to allow state and municipal governments to punish companies that boycott, divest from or place sanctions on Israel.
The measure, which passed 77 to 23, started as the kind of routine policy bill that passes the Senate with little to no opposition. It reauthorizes at least $3.3 billion in military financing to Israel and extends security aid to Jordan, imposes new sanctions on individuals who provide support to the Syrian government and directs the Treasury Department to determine whether the Central Bank of Syria is engaged in money laundering.
“This represents the broad consensus of this body about our nation’s responsibilities as an ally and a partner,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said on Tuesday.
But the late inclusions of the anti-boycott, divest and sanction — or anti-B.D.S. — provision and an amendment by Mr. McConnell reproaching the president for a “precipitous withdrawal” of troops from Syria and Afghanistan raised some concerns in both parties.
The measure opposing the Israel boycott, drafted by Senators Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, and Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, appeared to be calculated, in part, to drive a wedge between Israel supporters in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party and a younger, activist wing more willing to challenge unconditional American support of the Jewish state.
Senate Democrats mulling presidential runs recoiled at the McConnell amendment, making a rare alliance with Mr. Trump as they declared it was time for American troops to come home from Afghanistan, the longest war in the nation’s history.
Both pieces of legislation face dim prospects in the House. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the No. 5 Democrat, told reporters last month that leadership would not “allow the Senate Republicans to move legislation forward that really is a political stunt.” House Democrats are expected to pass the components addressing Jordan and security assistance to Israel, as they did last Congress, and the House has already passed the Syria provisions.
Republicans overwhelmingly backed Mr. Rubio’s bill, reigniting a fracas over political support for the B.D.S. movement, which seeks to pressure Israel into ending the occupation of the West Bank, among other things. A cluster of Democratic lawmakers, including Representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a Somali refugee; Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the first Palestinian-American woman in the House; and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, have emerged as vocal critics of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, and Republicans have sought to tar the party with their beliefs.
“It is designed to see that the B.D.S. is tamped down and is not appropriate to use against our friend, Israel,” said Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Some senators, including Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, and Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, refused to support the bill, citing concerns raised by activist groups that the provision was an unconstitutional stifling of their right to protest.
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, the lone Republican opposing the bill, delivered an impassioned denunciation on Tuesday. “The founding fathers would roll over in their graves if they knew what we were doing today,” he said, adding that the Boston Tea Party was political speech in the form of a boycott.
“Free speech, the First Amendment, is about allowing language you don’t like,” Mr. Paul said. “It’s about allowing boycotts you may not like.”
The American Civil Liberties Union also upbraided the legislation, saying in a statement that “the Senate chose politics over the Constitution and trampled on the First Amendment rights of all Americans.”
Mr. Rubio swiftly pushed back.
“While the First Amendment protects the right of individuals to free speech, it does not protect the right of entities to engage in discriminatory conduct,” he wrote in an Op-Ed in The New York Times. “Moreover, state governments have the right to set contracting and investment policies, including policies that exclude companies engaged in discriminatory commercial- or investment-related conduct targeting Israel.”
Most senators considering a presidential run voted against the legislation, including Mr. Sanders and Mr. Brown as well as Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California. Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Michael Bennet of Colorado voted for it.
Those senators also voted last week to shield the president from the rebuke sponsored by Mr. McConnell after his abrupt decision, announced on Twitter, to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan. Further stoking concerns about the administration’s strategy in the Middle East, General Joseph L. Votel, the commander of the United States Central Command, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that he was not consulted before Mr. Trump announced the withdrawal on Twitter and “was not aware of the specifics of the announcement.”
But a number of Democratic senators have maintained that Mr. Trump made the correct decision to remove troops from seemingly intractable battles.
“The American people do not want endless war,” Mr. Sanders said in a statement. “It is the job of Congress to responsibly end these military interventions and bring our troops home, not to come up with more reasons to continue them, as this amendment does.”
Senate Republicans were more than happy to sign onto the rebuke, and advanced the amendment on Monday, 70 to 26, the second time in three months the Republican-led chamber sought to put Mr. Trump’s foreign policy on notice. The Senate voted in December to end American military assistance for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, after the killing of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
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