US Senate votes down motion to advance resolution on human rights practices in Israel

The US Senate rejected a motion to bring forward a resolution introduced by Sen. Chris Van Hollen concerning human rights practices in Israel and the occupied West Bank from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The motion to discharge S. Res. 852 from the Foreign Relations Committee failed to receive the required votes, with 47 senators supporting it and 51 opposing it.

Among individual senators, Sen. John Fetterman voted against the motion, while Republican Sen. Rand Paul voted in favor.

Republican Senators Bill Cassidy and Dan Sullivan did not vote.

The resolution, titled the “Israel Human Rights Practices” resolution, calls for the State Department to provide Congress with information concerning human rights conditions in the West Bank, including the circumstances surrounding the deaths and detention of American citizens.

Before the vote, Van Hollen called on his colleagues to advance the resolution.

“I rise today to call up Resolution 852, a resolution to require the State Department to provide Congress with information on the growing violence and human rights abuses taking place in the West Bank, including against American citizens,” he said.

Van Hollen said nine US citizens have been killed in the West Bank over four years by “violent Israeli settlers” or members of the Israeli security forces.

“The United States government has repeatedly said that our number one priority overseas is to protect American citizens. And yet, as violent Israeli settlers continue to terrorize civilians in the West Bank, American citizens have been killed time and again, in many cases with the complicity of the government of Israel, the Netanyahu government,” he said.

The senator questioned whether the US government had done enough to pursue accountability for Americans killed or detained in the West Bank.

“How many more Americans must die in the West Bank before this administration takes serious, credible steps to secure accountability?” he said.