Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Israel Aid Cuts ‘On The Table’ For 3 Of Top 4 Democratic Candidates

Sen. Elizabeth Warren said on Sunday that she would be open to cutting military aid to Israel, making her the latest leading figure in the Democratic presidential primary to make such a statement.

Then-president Barack Obama cut the last formal aid deal for Israel in 2016: The United States pledged to provide $38 billion over 10 years for Israeli military needs.

Fellow Democratic candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana have also said this year that they would be open to reexamining aid to Israel.

Israelis “absolutely the right to live in peace, independence and security,” Sanders said in July on the podcast Pod Save America, but added that under Netanyahu, Israel had an “an extreme right-wing government with many racist tendencies,” and he would consider using American military aid as leverage.

Buttigieg has said that if Israel proceeded in annexing portions of the West Bank, as Netanyahu had pledged to do, the prime minister “should know that a President Buttigieg would take steps to ensure that American taxpayers won’t help foot the bill.”

Warren, Sanders and Buttigieg are polling in second through fourth places in the Democratic primary, according to the respected Real Clear Politics polling average.

Aiden Pink is the deputy news editor of the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aidenpink

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.