In a 97-3 vote, the Senate upheld voted to uphold an amendment to keep the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem and the appropriated funds for it in the new Coronavirus budget resolution.
According to The Jerusalem Post, the resolution was put forward by Republican Senators Jim Inhofe (OK) and Bill Haggerty (TN).
In a tweet, Inhofe stated that he was “pleased the Senate overwhelmingly passed the amendment .
Among those who voted no are former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who, during the Presidential primary debates, called a prominent Israel-American lobby a platform for “bigotry” and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “reactionary racist“.
Elizabeth Warren (D-MASS) has formally supported a two-state resolution between Israel and Palestine, which was unilaterally opposed by the Palestinians but Israel is still open to.
The move would help bolster Israel’s claim to Jerusalem as their home capital, a move that is disputed by Muslim countries but especially Palestinians.
The two people groups have been at war for years. It is not fully known how the war began, but there have been initiatives on both sides to conquer the other.
One of the culminations of the back-and-forth wars between the two countries was the Six Day War, where Israel conquered large swathes of their current land outright by beating back an opposing military coalition between Jordan, Syria and Egypt.
The Six Day War was partly caused by a series of political, military, and diplomatic tensions that started with the Second World War, where Israel fought with the Allied forces and was given its country back after thousands of years of being under rule by differing countries.
Though many presidents have supported Israel’s statehood, it was mainly former presidents Bush and Trump who provided the most support to Israel. President Trump with the Abraham Accords and President Bush during the war in the Middle East. However, President Obama is largely responsible for the Iron Dome, Israel’s missile interception defense system that helps shoot down incoming rocket barges.
