Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) told JNS exclusively on Friday that he informed Israeli contacts before joining 102 Democrats who voted for an amendment that would cut $3.3 billion in U.S. assistance to Israel.
The congressman also said that contrary to news reports, his public statement was not intended to suggest that he caved, even in part, to pressure from anti-Israel protesters.
Smith previously told JNS that anti-Israel activists, including his political opponents, harass him and his family outside his home in Bellevue, Wash.
“No, this isn’t because of the pressure of anything,” Smith told JNS on Friday. “I was less inclined to vote in favor of this precisely because of what these lunatics were doing.”
“The main reasons I was hesitating so much on the vote was I didn’t want people to think that the pressure had anything to do with it,” he said.
He told JNS that his vote was meant to send a message to Israel to change its approach to how it conducts its wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
“Two and a half years ago, I sat and met in Netanyahu’s office and had an hour-and-a-half-long conversation with him right before Rafah,” Smith said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told him, “Look, this is going to be over in two, three weeks,” he said. “Two and a half years ago.”
Smith also pointed to statements by Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir that “make them sound like they are genocidal, even though this isn’t a genocide,” he told JNS.
“I keep saying, ‘You’ve got to change something.’ And they keep saying, ‘Yes, yes, yes, we agree with you.’ And nothing changes,” he said.
Smith said that he forewarned his “connections” in Israel before casting his vote. “I spoke to them,” he said. “I told them up front, before the vote happened, that this is where I was going.”
Smith told JNS that he’s “not against giving them any money,” but that “it was hard to justify that amount of money again with no changes in policy.”
