MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) said there should be conditions placed on U.S. military aid to Israel, a view he said is quickly becoming the “consensus position of the Democratic Party.”
“Aid has to be conditioned,” Newsom told the Washington Examiner on Saturday in New Hampshire, where he is test-driving a 2028 run for president.
“I mean, it’s pretty self-evident, from what’s going on with the settler violence, what’s happening in the West Bank,” Newsom said. “Bibi’s policies preclude any chance of a two-state solution, and so foundationally, that’s against the interests of the American people. Bipartisan consensus for decades and decades, administration after administration.”
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Newsom took a step to the left on Israel earlier this year when he said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “walking us down that path where I don’t think you have a choice about that consideration.”
But his comments on Saturday mark some of his most pointed to date and provide fresh evidence that Netanyahu’s casualty-heavy-war in Gaza, which Newsom called a “moral catastrophe,” as well as Israel’s expansion into Lebanon and the West Bank, are alienating Democrats who in the past were unequivocal in their support for the Jewish state.
“We’ll see what happens in a few weeks, a week, with the election,” Newsom said, referring to Israel’s Oct. 27 elections — its first since the 2023 invasion by Hamas. “That’ll play a big role. But I think it’s becoming the consensus position in the Democratic Party. It’s no longer, from my perspective, a divisive issue — the issue of conditioning aid, which is fascinating, how quickly that has shifted in the last year or so, and I share that concern.”
Newsom madę the remarks at his last of three stops in New Hampshire, where he spent the day campaigning on behalf of statewide and congressional candidates.
The question of American military aid took on new significance in the spring when a record number of Senate Democrats, most of the 47-member caucus, voted to block a weapons sale to Israel. In the House, more than 100 Democrats voted against a separate measure in July.
It remains a delicate geopolitical issue, however, as Democrats weigh how far to the left to go on Israel. In March, Newsom backtracked after he sided with critics who believe Israel had become an “apartheid state,” calling the statement a “regret” of his.
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Other expected 2028 hopefuls have gone further than Newsom, suggesting Israel has perpetrated a genocide or arguing the U.S. should stop sending the $3.8 billion it gets each year altogether. In a sign of the shifting political climate, Netanyahu has preemptively proposed weaning Israel off that assistance over the next decade, and some Republicans agree with that approach.
Newsom declined to go “down the rabbit hole” on what sorts of aid should be conditioned, delineating between defensive weaponry like the Iron Dome missile system and the bombs and other munitions provided to Israel.
“I’m not naive about the nuances of defensive weapons versus offensive weapons, and the dual use of weapons, and what constitutes defensive versus offensive,” he said. “But the bottom line, even just the foundations of the Leahy framework, human rights. I mean, the foundational principles to which we do provide aid consistently should be advanced, including Israel.”
To date, Newsom has directed his criticism at Netanyahu rather than Israel writ large and, in a show of support, traveled there in 2023 to meet with survivors of the Hamas attack.
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On Saturday, Newsom said that “Bibi Netanyahu has done a remarkable job of really isolating himself from the rest of the world and increasingly from the American people.”
“The damage he’s done is incalculable,” Newsom added before returning to the October vote that will decide whether Netanyahu stays in power. “I hope the people of Israel can reconcile that this October, this month.”