Grace Gilson | JTA
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a left-wing New York Democrat, drew criticism from her base after voting to oppose an amendment that would have cut funding to Israel’s aerial defense system — even as she voted against the overall bill the funding was included in, JTA reported.
Ocasio-Cortez voted on July 18 against an amendment to the defense appropriations bill that would have slashed $500 million for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense program. The amendment was proposed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Georgia Republican who has previously advocated against U.S. funding to Israel, and separately by Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who is one of the fiercest critics of Israel in Congress.
The amendment was struck down by a vote of 422-6. In addition to Omar and Greene, Democrats Al Green of Texas, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Summer Lee of Pennsylvania also supported it, as well as Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who opposes all foreign aid.
The overall Department of Defense Appropriations Act passed on July 18 with a vote of 221-209, allocating $832 billion in defense funding for 2026. Ocasio-Cortez, like all but six Democrats, voted against the broader bill.
Ocasio-Cortez is part of the “Squad” of progressive lawmakers that includes Omar, Tlaib and Lee and often votes with them. Her vote against the bill reignited criticism from another frequent ally, the Democratic Socialists of America, which wrote in a statement on July 19 that promoting any aid to Israel is “unacceptable.”
“An arms embargo means keeping all arms out of the hands of a genocidal military, no exceptions. This is why we oppose Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’[s] vote against an amendment that would have blocked $500 million in funding for the Israeli military’s Iron Dome program,” the DSA said in a statement.
Last year, the DSA pulled their endorsement of Ocasio-Cortez after she hosted a panel on antisemitism that the group said “conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism and condemned boycotting Zionist institutions.”
In a post on X on July 19, Ocasio-Cortez defended her vote against the amendment, writing that Greene’s amendment “does nothing to cut off offensive aid to Israel nor end the flow of US munitions being used in Gaza,” which she suggested she would oppose.
