On Wednesday, Georgia lawmakers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock voted with 17 other Democratic U.S. senators in favor of a resolution led by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to block the sale of some weapons to Israel.
According to Ossoff, the failed resolution would have accounted for less than 5% of American arms that will likely flow to Israel in the next three years.
The Georgia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Georgia) released a statement on Thursday praising the senators.
“While the resolution did not pass the Senate, we are grateful for Senators Ossoff’s’ and Warnock’s support for this important attempt to align U.S. arms transfers with U.S. law, international law, and human rights.”
In a speech on the Senate floor following the resolution’s failure to pass, Ossoff invoked the decision of then-President Ronald Regan to withhold weapons to Israel in 1982 after the bombardment of Beirut resulted in what he believed were excessive civilian casualties.
Ossoff, who is of Jewish descent, remarked that the insistence for Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza to respect America’s interests and values had gone ignored.
Over 44,000 people have died in Gaza during the war between Israel and Hamas, and more than half of those fatalities are women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
“No foreign government is simply entitled as a matter of right to American weapons with no strings attached,” he said.
“Had these resolutions passed, however, perhaps Israeli politicians would have received the necessary message that has so far been disregarded. Which is, yes, defend yourself. Yes, defeat your enemies. But have mercy for the innocent, restrain your own extremists, and respect the interests of the United States.”
State Rep. Esther Panitch, the only Jewish elected official in the Georgia General Assembly, voiced her disappointment in a statement, saying, “In the end, the failed vote will not be felt by the Israeli forces or government, but acute feelings of abandonment by our senators are already being felt by pro-Israel constituents, both Jewish and not Jewish, in Georgia.”
Palestinian-American and Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman tweeted she was grateful to both senators for upholding international humanitarian law. Romman got national attention when she was denied the opportunity to speak at the Democratic National Convention. Warnock was one of the few speakers at the DNC to touch briefly on the suffering in Gaza.
