Oregon’s U.S. senators split on weapons sales to Israel as death toll from Gaza war surpasses 60,000

The two Democratic U.S. senators from Oregon usually vote in unison on important congressional votes.

However, over the past year, as Israel fights the militant and political organization Hamas in Gaza, they have voted differently on sending billions of dollars’ worth of American military hardware to Israel. 60,000 Palestinians, primarily civilians, have been murdered by the military campaign, and the majority of Gaza’s remaining population is now homeless and faces starvation.

In September 2024, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, and Sen. Jeff Merkley, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, co-sponsored six legislation to stop the United States from selling weaponry to Israel for $20 billion. Merkley was also part of a majority of Senate Democrats who voted on Wednesday in support of two Sanders measures introduced in the Senate to stop the supply of 20,000 assault guns and a $675 million sale of bombs to Israel.

In a statement, Merkley said, “We have a profound moral responsibility to end this collective punishment of innocent civilians.” He also added that the United States should refrain from sending any more weaponry until the Israeli government provides vital humanitarian food and medical supplies to Palestinians in Gaza.

However, all Republicans and a few Democrats, including Oregon’s other senator Ron Wyden, voted against the move to stop the U.S. weapons sales, which ultimately failed.

Wyden voted against every recent attempt to halt the transfer of weapons to Israel.

Israel needs weapons to protect itself from Iran, he stated in an email. He stated that he is in favor of diplomatic initiatives to negotiate a lasting end to the conflict in Gaza, provide humanitarian help to Palestinians, and secure the release of the remaining Israeli captives that Hamas has held since the beginning of the conflict.

For over a year, Wyden’s ongoing backing of Israel has been a divisive topic at his regular constituent town halls. Wyden, who is the son of Jewish exiles from Nazi Germany, has steadily increased his criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, while maintaining that the country must have the right to self-defense.

Wyden blasted Netanyahu for preventing food and medicine from reaching Palestinians in Gaza, resulting in rampant starvation and malnutrition, and he called the number of civilian deaths in Gaza intolerably high.

Wyden and Merkley joined 39 other senators in signing a letter to Steve Witkoff, the special envoy to the Middle East, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday, expressing concerns about the worsening malnutrition crisis in Gaza and calling on the administration to reengage in diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire agreement and end the war.

Since October 7, 2023, the United States has provided Israel with more than $20 billion in military aid and weapons.

The Gaza Health Ministry claims that since then, Israeli soldiers have murdered over 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the majority of them were civilians. The UN and other international organizations generally agree with this statistic.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, about 2,000 of the deceased were younger than two years old. About 1,200 people were killed and 250 hostages were taken when Hamas militants stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, sparking the start of the war. According to the Israeli authorities, almost half of the hostages have been freed or rescued, and the remaining thirty are thought to be alive.

Approximately 90% of the surviving population of Gaza, a 25-mile-long area along the Mediterranean Sea that borders Israel and Egypt, has been displaced by Israeli troops in the last 20 months, and the majority of the remaining population is facing hunger as Israeli soldiers prevent food and medication from entering.

Israel’s military violated a truce deal with Hamas that had been in effect since January in March by bombing a sizable portion of the Gaza Strip and enforcing a total blockade on the entry of gasoline, food, medicine, and other supplies. There have been almost daily complaints of Israeli troops shooting at Palestinians who are waiting for food, despite Israel permitting some U.S. aid to be delivered at locations inside Israeli military zones since May. The Gaza Health Ministry reports that since March, more than 8,500 Palestinians have been killed, and since May, Israeli soldiers have shot more than 1,000 Palestinians while they waited for food at those distribution locations.

According to data from the Gaza Health Ministry, since the war began, over 140 people—88 of them children—have perished from starvation. The majority of those deaths occurred in the last few weeks. According to a recent report from The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, a global initiative that provides food security analysis for charities and U.N. agencies, over 20,000 children in Gaza were seen by doctors for acute malnutrition between April and July, and over 3,000 of those children are severely malnourished.

According to Wyden, he has always held the view that the best way to achieve lasting peace between Israel and Palestine is to establish two states.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated in May that the Israeli military and administration intend to maintain control over Gaza indefinitely. He claimed that under what he described as voluntary emigration—which human rights attorneys describe as forcible expulsion—the government would relocate Gazans to other nations, which would be against international law and constitute a war crime.

Wyden claimed that Benjamin Netanyahu is endangering Jews in the area and globally, prioritizing his own interests over all others, and abandoning long-standing peace initiatives.

In his remarks, Merkley again attacked Netanyahu, claiming that while Netanyahu prevents life-saving food and medicine from reaching Palestinians in Gaza, the United States is allowing additional fatalities in Gaza by arming Israeli Defense Forces.

The United States is implicated in Netanyahu’s tactic of starving Palestinians every time it does not demand a major influx of food or supply that massive surge of food ourselves. “This violates all religious and moral codes,” he stated. America shouldn’t give Netanyahu’s administration a single dollar or bomb until every mother and child are well nourished. No more explosives. More help.

— The Oregon Capital Chronicle’s Alex Baumhardt

Established in 2021, The Oregon Capital Chronicle is a nonprofit news outlet that specializes in Oregon politics, government, and policy.

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