The only two to defer were John Fetterman (D-PA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV).
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
Almost all U.S. Senate Democrats signed an amendment backing Palestinian statehood as a means of solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but did not mention the ongoing war with Hamas.
Forty-nine out of 51 senators who caucus with the Democratic party supported the statement saying that it was U.S. policy to support a negotiated two-state solution that would end with “Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace, security, dignity, and mutual recognition.”
It then emphasized that this solution had to ”ensure the state of Israel’s survival as a secure, democratic, and Jewish state, and fulfill the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people for a state of their own.”
The brief language was attached to a forthcoming bill authorizing additional emergency military aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan as well as funds to shore up America’s own borders that have been overwhelmed by millions of illegal immigrants.
Ukraine is trying to fend off an almost two-year old Russian invasion of its territory, and Taiwan is under growing threat from China.
The only two Democrats to defer were John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Fetterman “strongly supports a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine, and always has,” his spokesperson told Axios. “He also strongly believes that this resolution should include language stipulating the destruction of Hamas as a precondition to peace.”
Manchin’s statement on the subject seemed to show him to be inclined to the position held by most Israelis today that a Palestinian state with its current leadership is a nonstarter.
“Once a Palestinian government with its peoples’ best interests at heart agrees that Israel should be a state, I will be the first one to sign on to a bipartisan amendment supporting that Israel recognize a Palestinian state,” he wrote.
Amendment initiator Hawaiian Sen. Brian Schatz has made clear that the declarative statement is pushback against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s publicly firm opposition to such a state being formed from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which he restated last week.
“The prime minister’s statements … accelerated our efforts and also turbocharged our efforts,” he told journalists.
“What will determine the future of Israel and Palestine is whether or not there’s hope. And the two-state solution has to be that hope,” he said.
Netanyahu has based his opposition on the fact that the PA is a terror supporter itself with its “pay for slay” policy, whose leadership has not even condemned the Hamas massacre of 1,200 people on October 7, 2023, which sparked the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
Schatz did add that he would not oppose the aid bill if the amendment doesn’t get to the Senate floor for a vote.
President Joe Biden has said that the PA, as a state, should take over governance of the Gaza Strip after Israel has destroyed Hamas. Jerusalem believes that the IDF must have security control throughout Gaza to ensure that that no terrorist threat ever emanates from the coastal enclave again, with some form of as-yet undetailed local civil governance without Hamas being possible.
Biden’s determination to produce a Palestinian state out of the war flies against the view of over 80% of the Israeli public that says there is no prospect for peace with the Palestinians.
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