Embattled Senator John Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote against a resolution that would require the State Department to report when Americans are murdered by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. The Tuesday night motion failed 47–53, with Senator Rand Paul being the only Republican to join the rest of the Democrats.
This is a low point, even for someone as rabidly and irrationally pro-Israel as Fetterman. The resolution, introduced by Senators Chris Van Hollen, Tim Kaine, and Bernie Sanders, would have been largely symbolic—requiring a State Department report to Congress on fatal settler violence against American citizens in the West Bank within 30 days of their murders, nothing more. The State Department failing to deliver said report would only trigger a stoppage of some aid to Israel, an issue that Fetterman lives and dies by. The resolution also included reports on the status and conditions of Palestinian-American children from the West Bank who are currently in IDF custody. But thanks to Fetterman and the GOP, Congress won’t even get access to that basic and vital information.
“Tonight, 47 Senators supported my resolution to get accountability for the 9 Americans killed on the West Bank & for Palestinians who face injustices daily. That’s more support than we’ve ever had in this fight,” Van Hollen wrote Tuesday night on X. “Republicans blocked us, but we won’t stop until we get justice.”
Nine American citizens have been killed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank since 2022, with little to no justice from either the U.S. or Israeli government. Palestinian-American journalist and Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh and 20-year-old Palestinian-American and Florida resident Sayfollah Kamel Musallet are perhaps the most notable of the nine deaths. The resolution does not account for the at least 1,000 Palestinians without American citizenship who have been killed in violent pogroms by Israeli settlers in the West Bank since October 7.

