House Passes Bill Cutting Federal Funds to Anti-Israel Boycott Colleges, 167 Democrats Vote No

The House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that would strip federal funding from colleges and universities that participate in boycotts of Israel. The vote was 237 to 169.

All but two Republicans, Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio, voted for it. Among Democrats, 167 voted no, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and his top deputies. Only 33 Democrats broke ranks to support the bill, according to both Fox News and Democracy Now!.

The legislation would bar institutions engaged in what it calls "non-expressive commercial boycotts" of Israel from receiving government funding. It would also require universities that do take federal money to affirm that students aren't "unreasonably obstructed" from studying abroad in Israel.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., co-led the bill despite his own party's leadership opposing it. "The goal of the BDS movement is the destruction of the democratic State of Israel, America's critical ally in the global fight against terror," Gottheimer said in a statement reported by Fox News. "BDS has no place on college campuses or anywhere in our country."

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who is Palestinian American, took the floor against it. "This bill is an attack on free speech and academic freedom, all in the name of defending a genocidal apartheid state," Tlaib said, according to Democracy Now!. She argued Congress was forcing universities "to pledge their loyalty" to a foreign government's policies.

Conditioning federal money on institutional political positions does raise a real First Amendment question, and reasonable people can object to Washington dictating what a university may or may not boycott. The bill's supporters, including two Republicans who voted no on libertarian grounds, frame it as a funding condition, not a speech ban. No court has ruled on this specific measure, and the dispute over whether it crosses a constitutional line remains unresolved.

A party split that keeps widening

The vote is the latest flashpoint in a Democratic rift over Israel that's been building for months. Fox News points to Rep. Scott Wiener, a gay Jewish Democrat running for Congress in California, who told CNN he was heckled with references to his "Israeli handlers" while marching at a pro-transgender rights event, a trope with a long antisemitic history.

The Republican National Committee is leaning into that split. RNC Chairman Joe Gruters, in prepared remarks published by the New York Post ahead of an address to the Republican Jewish Coalition's Las Vegas summit, warned that a Democratic majority in Congress would hand power to "the squad" and the Democratic Socialists of America. "It would be the people who looked at October 7 and stood with Hamas," Gruters said in the excerpts.

At the same summit, Republican Jewish Coalition president Norm Coleman told donors the November midterms will decide whether Washington keeps treating Israel as a strategic ally, according to the Financial Times. Coleman warned that a Democratic majority could condition U.S. aid to Israel and slow the alliance.

A June Pew survey found only 51% of Republicans and just 16% of Democrats view the Israeli government favorably, a gap that political scientist Ian Lustick says reflects the collapse of the old bipartisan consensus that once backed roughly $3 billion in annual military aid without much daylight between the parties.

AIPAC becomes the issue, not just the funder

The pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, once a near-untouchable fixture on Capitol Hill, is now something candidates campaign against. In Massachusetts, Rep. Seth Moulton announced he'd reject AIPAC money in his Senate primary challenge to Sen. Edward Markey, according to the Jewish Journal. Neither Markey nor Republican candidate John Deaton has taken AIPAC contributions either.

In Michigan, AIPAC's United Democracy Program spent heavily to back Rep. Haley Stevens against Abdul El-Sayed in the Democratic Senate primary. El-Sayed, who has called Israel's Gaza campaign "genocide," won anyway by a small margin, the Jewish Journal reported. El-Sayed also drew criticism after describing an attack on a synagogue preschool as an incident where "hurt people hurt people," a comment he later apologized for, per Daily Wire.

A quieter fight over the Pentagon budget

A coalition of more than 50 rights groups sent a letter to House and Senate Armed Services leaders, Sens. Roger Wicker and Jack Reed and Reps. Mike Rogers and Adam Smith, urging them to strip a provision from the next defense authorization bill that would create a U.S.-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative, according to Truthout. The provision, Section 219 in the House-passed NDAA and Section 1217 in the Senate version, would deepen joint work on quantum computing, AI, and cyber and electronic warfare systems. The letter's signers argue Israel's conduct in Gaza should disqualify it from deeper military integration with the U.S., a claim tied to ongoing international legal disputes that remain contested and unresolved in American courts.

Federal filings show the Israeli government has paid political consultant Brad Parscale more than $31 million since April to run a pro-Israel advertising campaign aimed at American voters.