McConnell slams Democrats for weighing ‘ridiculous’ conditions to Israel aid

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) excoriated Senate Democrats on Tuesday for openly debating whether to place conditions on aid to Israel.

McConnell made the comments in a Tuesday morning floor speech, hours before Democrats met to discuss conditioning aid after some in the party expressed discontent over Israel’s bombing campaign and the more than 13,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

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“Senate Democrats will use their caucus lunch today to discuss placing restrictions on U.S. military assistance to Israel,” McConnell said of the meeting. “One of our colleagues is already on the record demanding that President Biden ‘be more aggressive with the Israelis.’ Another has declared that ‘not one penny will be coming to Israel’ unless our ally bends to his view, offered from the comfort of a Senate office, on how Israel should conduct self-defense operations.”

“If Senate Democrats want to vote to tie the hands of Israeli soldiers as they defend their country against vicious terrorists, I welcome such a debate,” the top Senate Republican added.

The Senate GOP leader doubled down at a press conference later on Tuesday, telling reporters he believes Democrats’ dispute over Israel aid is “ridiculous.”

“Our relationship with Israel is the closest national security relationship of any country in the world,” McConnell said. “To condition, in effect, our assistance to Israel on their meeting our standards, it seems to me is totally unnecessary.”

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The Oct. 7 massacre and Israel’s military offensive highlighted divisions within the Democratic Party. Most in the party have emphasized Israel’s right to defend itself, even as some call for restraint. A vocal minority in the House and Senate Democratic conferences, however, have begun to oppose Israel’s response to the attack, which marked the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

On the Senate side, Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have separately called for conditioning aid, while Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) has urged Israel not to resume its bombing campaign in Gaza.