The Senate on Wednesday blocked a Democratic bid to cancel arms sales to Israel, but the party’s concerns over the war against Iran widened its rift over arming the longtime U.S. ally.
Progressive senators led by Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, have long been critical of robust American aid for Israel’s military. But several Democrats who in the past had opposed efforts by Mr. Sanders and others to block U.S. arms transfers changed course and registered their disapproval of the sale of armored bulldozers and 12,000 bombs.
On Wednesday, 36 Democrats voted to take up a measure that would block the sale of the 1,000-pound bombs, while 40 Democrats voted in favor of a measure to bar the sale of the bulldozers that Israel has used to level entire neighborhoods in Gaza and Lebanon. Roughly a dozen more Democrats voted for those measures than have voted for similar ones in the past.
Republicans voted en masse against taking up the measures. Congress has the power to cancel weapons transfers proposed by the administration, but only if both chambers pass disapproval resolutions and the president signs them, or supermajorities override his veto.
Democratic leaders of the effort argued that the Senate must stop the transfer of new weapons to Israel that would support a war that President Trump launched against Tehran, in coordination with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, without congressional authorization and which a majority of Americans oppose.
“If we want to rein in a Trump administration that launched an illegal war against Iran, we should also rein in the Netanyahu administration that’s doing exactly the same thing with American taxpayer dollars,” Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, said ahead of the vote.
Mr. Sanders offered similar resolutions last summer, which Republicans also blocked, and in 2024, with the same outcome. In those cases, about half of Senate Democrats backed his effort. On Wednesday, roughly three-quarters of them did.
Among the converts were Senators Maria Cantwell of Washington; Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona; Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff of California; Elissa Slotkin of Michigan; and Ron Wyden of Oregon.
“We oppose actions that further deepen the United States in an unauthorized conflict in Iran — one with no clear strategy, no legal authority, and no defined end,” Mr. Padilla and Mr. Schiff said in a joint statement.
Four Democrats, including Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, voted to take up the measure blocking the bulldozers, but not the one to block the bombs. The Trump administration had declared an emergency, citing the war in Iran, to bypass Congress and more swiftly transfer the powerful bombs to Israel.
The votes came as Israel continued its sweeping military campaign against Lebanon that has killed more than 2,100 people, including civilians and Hezbollah fighters, according to the Lebanese authorities.
Mr. Sanders criticized Israel for its widespread attacks on civilian centers in Gaza that killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, as well as its blockade of the border that has prevented critical food and medical supplies from reaching residents in the war-torn territory. He also warned that continued unchecked U.S. military support for Israel would lead to more deadly attacks.
“For Netanyahu, Gaza was not enough,” Mr. Sanders said on the floor. “Attacking Iran was not enough. Netanyahu is now waging a full-blown war of expansion against Lebanon.”
Mr. Kelly said the joint U.S.-Israeli operation that had widened into a regional war, and led to severe economic fallout, was “not business as usual.”
“And it is not making us safer,” he added. “The United States and Israel are fighting a war against Iran without a clear strategy or goal.”
Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the measures would “embolden” Iran and “call into question American reliability” in the Middle East.
“It would send the message that the United States is prepared to leave our ally Israel vulnerable to further Iranian attacks and put the tens of thousands of Americans living there at risk,” he said.
Megan Mineiro is a Times congressional reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early-career journalists.
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