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

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) speaks during a town hall event on October 18, 2019 in Norfolk, Virginia. Image by Zach Gibson/Getty Images
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.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren: “It is the official policy of the United States of America to support a two-state solution, and if Israel is moving in the opposite direction, then everything is on the table.” pic.twitter.com/GjumaLoZ9k
— The Hill (@thehill) October 20, 2019
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
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 2
Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
- 3
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 4
Fast Forward Student suspended for ‘F— the Jews’ video defends himself on antisemitic podcast
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion This week proved it: Trump’s approach to antisemitism at Columbia is horribly ineffective
-
Yiddish קאָנצערט לכּבֿוד דעם ייִדישן שרײַבער און רעדאַקטאָר באָריס סאַנדלערConcert honoring Yiddish writer and editor Boris Sandler
דער בעל־שׂימחה האָט יאָרן לאַנג געדינט ווי דער רעדאַקטאָר פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָרווערטס.
-
Fast Forward Trump’s new pick for surgeon general blames the Nazis for pesticides on our food
-
Fast Forward Jewish feud over Trump escalates with open letter in The New York Times
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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 comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag 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.