Democrats grow nervous over Israel’s conduct in Gaza as Senate leader vows not to consider House security bill – live | Democratsthedigitalchaps

The day so far

Shifting back to Israel’s ongoing invasion of Gaza, here’s Connecticut’s Democratic senator Chris Murphy on why he is now calling for a temporary pause in the fighting.

Murphy and 12 other Democratic senators signed onto a statement advocating for a “short-term cessation of hostilities” to get hostages out of Gaza and humanitarian aid in. He elaborates on the call, in an interview with MSNBC:

Also happening next Tuesday are legislative elections in Virginia, where Republicans hope to take full control of Senate and empower GOP governor Glenn Youngkin to enact his agenda unimpeded. The Guardian’s Joan E Greve reports on how a Democratic congresswoman who conquered new territory for the party five years ago is working to help state-level candidates do the same:

As two dozen volunteers prepared to knock doors on an unseasonably warm afternoon in late October, Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger reminded them that their work helped flip her battleground House seat in 2018. She predicted it would pay off again for Virginia Democrats this year.

“It is how we have won in hard races across Virginia and across the country, and it is certainly why I feel confident that we are on the right path headed towards November 7,” Spanberger said, speaking to campaign volunteers in a sunny parking lot in Manassas.

Spanberger has played an active role in boosting Virginia Democrats’ hopes for election day, as the party looks to flip control of the house of delegates and maintain their majority in the state senate. The stakes are high: Republicans would achieve a legislative trifecta in Richmond if they take control of the state senate, allowing them to enact controversial policies like banning abortion after 15 weeks and limiting access to the ballot box.

With her carefully crafted political persona as a centrist Democrat, Spanberger may be the right person to deliver her party’s closing message in the final stretch of the campaign. In Manassas, Spanberger laid out her vision for how Virginia Democrats would succeed on 7 November, saying: “There is nothing more important than helping people believe that the policies and the government – whether it be in Richmond or on Capitol Hill – that they want is possible.”

The results on Tuesday could affect Spanberger’s own future as well; the congresswoman has reportedly told multiple people that she intends to run for governor in the battleground state. If she is successful, her victory would allow Democrats to take back the Virginia governorship, which is now held by Republican Glenn Youngkin, in 2025.

It’s not 2024 yet, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any important elections happening this year. Indeed, next Tuesday is election day in several states nationwide for off-year contests over ballot initiatives, governor’s mansions and other key questions. Here’s the Guardian’s Alice Herman with some troubling news out of Ohio, where voters will decide on whether to protect abortion access in the state constitution:

Ohio’s Republican secretary of state quietly canceled the voter registrations of more than 26,000 voters in late September, less than two weeks before the deadline to register to vote in next week’s hotly contested abortion referendum in the state.

Voting rights advocates say the process lacked transparency and departed from Frank LaRose’s usual practice of alerting groups before removing registrations from the rolls. And it comes as LaRose campaigns hard against the 7 November constitutional amendment vote – when Ohio voters will decide whether to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution – as well as a vote on a separate measure to legalize marijuana.

“We are disappointed in the secretary of state’s office’s authorization of the voter purge while voting for the November election was already (and still is) under way,” Kayla Griffin, of the voting rights group All Voting is Local, said.

Voter list maintenance is a standard, legally required part of the election process, and many if not most of these registrations are for people who have moved away, died or long since stopped voting. The state issues alerts by mail to voters whose registration is flagged for removal, leaving the chance to update or confirm their registration before being kicked off the rolls.

But it’s unusual to remove voter registrations this close to an election given the risk of disenfranchising people who intend to vote but simply missed the memo that they had been flagged for removal. In fact, if this was a national election rather than a state-level contest, what LaRose’s office has done would have been illegal. The National Voter Registration Act prohibits elections offices from systematically removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election.

One minute after the House approved an Israel aid package that excluded providing similar assistance to Ukraine, the top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, tweeted this:

This what some would call a “subtweet”: McConnell does not mention the House proposal at all nor its architect, Republican speaker Mike Johnson, but he is clearly referring to the just-passed bill. While some Republicans are ready to cut off aid to Kyiv, McConnell remains a steadfast backer of the country’s defense against Russia.

Meanwhile, majority leader Chuck Schumer, the Democratic senator who calls the shots in the chamber, said he would not even consider the House bill:

House passes Israel security bill, but its prospects are grim

The Guardian’s staff has put together a comprehensive look at the conflict between Israel and Palestine, which is experiencing of one of its worst spasms of violence in years after Hamas’s terrorist attack, which killed 1,400 people last month.

The hostilities in the heart of the Middle East is one of the few wars with implications that are felt worldwide, and particularly in Washington DC, where successive presidential administrations, Joe Biden’s included, have made Israel a top foreign policy priority. Read more about it below:

There are those who talk about Middle East policy, and there are those who carry it out – regardless of if they have they ability or authority to actually do so. Case in point: Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor whose campaign for the Republican presidential nomination appears to be going nowhere. As the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe reports, he’s been trying to use his powers in the Sunshine State to respond to Hamas’s attack on Israel, or at least make voters think he is:

His pathway to the presidency looks more forbidding than ever, but tanking poll numbers and a stalled campaign have not dissuaded Ron DeSantis from running foreign policy as if he was the incumbent in the White House.

Florida’s Republican governor has raised eyebrows and hackles by using state resources for a series of actions and operations since the Israel-Hamas war began that come under the purview of the federal government.

They include “evacuating” hundreds of US citizens from Israel on charter flights; exporting humanitarian aid and claiming to have procured weapons; as well as activating Florida’s militarized state guard “as needed, to respond” to an overseas conflict.

Additionally, he has summoned Florida’s legislature for an emergency session next week that will, among other issues, seek to impose more state sanctions on Iran, a key ally of Hamas, replicating measures already in place at federal level for decades.

It’s not just senators who are weighing in on the war in Gaza, it’s also people who want to be senators. The Guardian’s Maanvi Singh reports that the conflict has exposed one of the few differences separating the three leading candidates to fill California’s open Senate seat next year:

As three leading California Democrats vie for a rare opening in the Senate, the Israeli offensive in Gaza has exposed rare fault lines in the candidates’ otherwise aligned platforms.

Following Hamas’s attack on Israel last month, all three leading candidates in the race to fill Dianne Feinstein’s seat – representatives Barbara Lee, Adam Schiff and Katie Porter – condemned the group’s actions. But as Israel ramped up its attacks on Gaza in retaliation, their divergent approaches to foreign policy became clear.

The fissures between the candidates are a reflection of debates within the broader Democratic party. But in California’s open primary, where voters will choose between leading Democratic candidates with nearly identical platforms, the issue could be a deciding factor for some voters.

“These candidates have regularly identified themselves as progressive candidates on a host of domestic policy issues – you can hardly tell the difference between them,” said Sara Sadhwani, a professor of American politics at Pomona College. But when it comes to Israel and Gaza, “from the get-go, we began to see some of these real distinctions”.

Lee, who was the sole member of Congress to vote against the authorization for the use of military force after 9/11 that gave the president broad power to wage war, has maintained her position as an unwavering anti-war progressive. She is the only leading candidate to have called for a ceasefire.

“I absolutely condemn all violence against civilians – including the horrific terrorist attacks by Hamas. Nothing is more valuable than human life,” she told the Guardian in an emailed statement. “And the surest way to mitigate the suffering in both Israel and Palestine is through a ceasefire.”

Democratic senators say ‘much more must be done to protect civilian life’ in Gaza war

In addition to US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s visit to Israel, the other big news in the Gaza conflict today is a speech by Hezbollah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah.

The Lebanon-based militia group is widely seen as considering entering the war by attacking Israel from the north. We have a separate live blog covering the latest in the conflict, and you can follow it here:

It’s not just Senate Democrats that are concerned about how Israel is carrying out its invasion of Gaza, and how that might reflect on the United States.

Yesterday, NBC News reported some Biden administration officials are also privately uneasy, despite the president’s embrace of Israel following Hamas’s 7 October attack.

Here’s more from their piece:

As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens and the death toll among Palestinian civilians continues to rise, there is growing concern among top Biden administration officials about how the Israelis are carrying out the war and uncertainty about whether they can be reined in, according to two current and two former senior U.S. officials familiar with the internal discussions.

Some administration officials also are worried that the U.S. could become more and more isolated on the world stage over President Joe Biden’s close alignment with Israel — and that he will be blamed for some of the Israeli military’s actions, according to three current and former officials.

Biden and his top aides have in the past week adjusted the administration’s public message to emphasize concern for Palestinian civilians and U.S. efforts to get them humanitarian relief. The shift follows growing criticism at home and abroad of Biden’s decision to swiftly and staunchly back Israel’s military response to Hamas while initially speaking less forcefully about protecting Palestinians; meanwhile, images of civilian casualties in Gaza continue to ricochet around the world.

“If this really goes bad, we want to be able to point to our past statements,” a senior U.S. official said. The official said the administration is particularly worried about a narrative taking hold that Biden supports all Israeli military actions and that U.S.-provided weapons have been used to kill Palestinian civilians, many of them women and children. The Defense Department has said the U.S. is not putting any limits or restrictions on the weapons it’s providing Israel.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a planned, more strident message Thursday before he boarded his plane for a trip to Israel. “As we’ve said from the start, Israel has not only the right but the obligation to defend itself,” he told reporters. “We’ve also said very clearly and repeatedly that how Israel does this matters.”

He said his discussions with the Israelis would focus on “concrete steps” they can take to better protect civilians. “We’ve seen in recent days Palestinian civilians continuing to bear the brunt of this action, and it’s important that the United States is committed to making sure everything possible is done to protect civilians.”

Top US diplomat arrives in Tel Aviv to urge humanitarian pauses, aid

Democrats grow nervous over Israel conduct in war with Hamas