U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen followed up her vote against selling offensive weapons to Israel by accusing America’s closest ally in the Middle East of holding up food aid to the people of Gaza. It’s the same charge the anti-Israel International Criminal Court (ICC) has leveled against the Jewish state.
It’s also a charge that has been repeatedly debunked, supporters of Israel say.
Shaheen, who has long supported more cooperative relations with the terror-sponsoring regime of Iran, is stepping up her anti-Israel rhetoric as she prepares to become the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Shaheen was one of just 18 Senate Democrats who voted to block the sale of some U.S. weapons to Israel last month. The country is in a war with both Hamas and Hezbollah — two Iranian proxies that have spent years attacking Israeli civilians and are committed to Israel’s destruction — as well as facing missile barrages launched directly from Tehran.
“I voted in favor of the joint resolutions today because I believe the Netanyahu government needs to change course on the conduct of the war in Gaza,” Shaheen said.
In an interview with Semafor published on Tuesday, Shaheen was asked about joining far-left Democrats like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in opposing these weapons sales.
“Shaheen explained that vote as a show of frustration with a conflict that ‘makes me angry,’ while noting she’s always supported Israel’s right to defend itself,” Semafor reported.
“We know that Israel is holding up humanitarian aid in northern Gaza,” Shaheen claimed. “There are (hundreds of thousands of) people that are on the verge of starvation. It’s not acceptable for a country that calls itself a democracy, that says it’s in support of human rights and freedom for people, to allow that to happen.”
Shaheen’s claim echoes the accusation of the notoriously anti-Israel ICC that the country is engaged in “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare.”
Supporters of Israel call that a smear of the Jewish state, one that in the case of the ICC, they believe is motivated by antisemitism. They point to data from Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) showing more than 59,000 trucks carrying some 1.2 million tons of aid — most of it food aid — have crossed into Gaza since the current war began.
The flow of aid has fluctuated based in part on changing military initiatives by Israel, the Israeli Defense Force has acknowledged. For example, when the IDF was battling Hamas terrorists in northern Gaza this fall, the flow of aid was interrupted for a few weeks.
But overall, Israel has sent massive amounts of food, medicine and other vital goods into Gaza, despite knowing much of it would end up in the hands of Hamas and its supporters.
In fact, a June analysis found Israel was delivering food aid amounting to more than 3,000 calories per capita per day to the people of Gaza.
“There have been relentless accusations that Israel does not allow enough aid into Gaza, contributing to a dire shortage of food,” David Adesnik with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies said when the study was released. “By challenging that conventional wisdom, this study may help refocus attention on how groups within Gaza prevent aid from reaching Palestinians.
The obstacle, IDF officials say, isn’t Israel, but rather Hamas and its criminal allies inside Gaza.
The same day Shaheen’s comments about Israel “holding up aid” were published, for example, news broke that the food aid group World Central Kitchen fired 62 employees over their connections to the Hamas terror organization.
And on a single day, Nov. 16, nearly 100 trucks carrying food aid were looted after entering Gaza, likely by Hamas terrorists working with local crime gangs.
“Remember, when aid first rolled off the U.S.-built pier on the Gaza coast, deliveries had to be suspended because looters pillaged so many trucks,” said Adesnik.
The source of violence in Gaza, Israel, and Lebanon is Iran, which funds Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis of Yemen and, until recently, propped up the murderous Assad regime in Syria. Shaheen has been a reliable vote on behalf of pro-Iran outreach by Democratic presidents, including the so-called “Iran Deal” brokered by the Obama administration, which allowed billions in revenue to flow to the mullahs of Tehran. When President Donald Trump abandoned the Iran appeasement policy and invoked his “maximum pressure” strategy, Shaheen denounced his decision.
But on Thursday, she was one of four senators who spoke at a Capitol Hill lunch event hosted by the Organization of Iranian American Communities, a group “dedicated to the promotion of a free and democratic Iran.”
In the wake of Iran’s recent setbacks from Gaza to Beirut to Damascus, Shaheen took a tougher stance toward the Islamist regime.
“Iran is projecting only weakness,” Shaheen said. “Now is the time to think about how we invest more in the core values that we all share: democracy, human rights, justice for everyone.”
