President Biden is facing unusually harsh criticism from some pro-Israel lawmakers in his party for pausing shipments of weapons to Israel.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), who said on X the move "makes a mockery of our credibility as an ally," had even more strident criticism for the president in a brief Capitol Hill interview on Wednesday.
"I suspect it's pandering to the far left," the staunchly pro-Israel lawmaker told Axios. "It looks like election year politics was driving it. That's my impression," he added."I'd like the president to do right by Israel and recognize that the far left is not representative of the rest of the country."
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) told Axios: "I strenuously disagree... We have to stand with our key ally throughout all of this."
Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.) told Axios that Israel is "surrounded by danger, they need the tools to defend themselves" and the U.S. "should fulfill our obligation" by sending the weapons.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said the move is clearly geared towards sending Israel a "message" about their use of force, but "Hamas is also getting the message... and that means the war is going to go on."
@ISIDEWITH2mos2MO
@ISIDEWITH2mos2MO
If you were the leader of a country, under what circumstances would you consider pausing weapon shipments to an ally facing threats?
@9MB5S6P2mos2MO
If the lines were blurred if I was unsure if it was doing any good. There are civilians casualties on both sides in war and inevitably both sides will commit wrong. so if I though what I was doing was making it worse or that they were used to carry out revenge for the sake of revenge rather than for defence / to win the war
