QuickTake:

Jeff Merkley voted to block the weapons sales, while Ron Wyden joined Republicans to defeat legislation that would have stopped planned shipments of guns and bombs to Israel.

Oregon’s two U.S. senators, both Democrats, are typically in lockstep on major votes in Congress.

But they’ve diverged on votes to send billions of dollars worth of U.S. military weapons to Israel over the past year as it wages war against the militant and political group Hamas in Gaza. The military campaign has killed 60,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and left most of the remaining population of Gaza today displaced and facing famine.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, co-sponsored six bills in September 2024 with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, to halt a $20 billion U.S. arms sale to Israel. Merkley was also among a majority of Senate Democrats who voted on Wednesday, July 30, in favor of two Sanders bills brought to the Senate to halt a $675 million bombs sale to Israel and shipments of 20,000 assault rifles.

“We have a profound moral responsibility to end this collective punishment of innocent civilians,” Merkley said in a statement, adding that until the Israeli government makes critical international food and medical aid available to Palestinians in Gaza, the U.S. should not send any more weapons.

But the attempt to block the U.S. weapons sales ultimately failed, with all Republicans voting against it, along with a handful of Democrats that included Oregon’s other senator, Ron Wyden.

Wyden voted against all of the recent measures to stop weapons sales to Israel.

He said in an email that Israel needs weapons to defend itself from Iran. He said he supports diplomatic efforts to secure the release of remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas since the start of the war, deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians and negotiate a permanent end to the war in Gaza.

Wyden’s continued support of Israel has been a contentious issue at his frequent constituent town halls for more than a year. The son of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, Wyden has been adamant that Israel must have the right to defend itself even as he gradually ramped up criticism of the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Wyden called the civilian death toll in Gaza “unacceptably high,” and criticized Netanyahu for causing widespread hunger and malnutrition by blocking food and medicine to Palestinians in Gaza.

On Tuesday, both Wyden and Merkley signed a letter with 39 other senators to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, special envoy to the Middle East, to express concerns about the growing malnutrition crisis in Gaza, and urging the administration to resume diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire agreement and end the war.

The U.S. has sent more than $20 billion in weapons and military aid to Israel since Oct. 7, 2023.

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Senior reporter Alex Baumhardt covers education and the environment for the Oregon Capital Chronicle. Before coming to Oregon, she was a national radio producer and reporter covering education for American Public Media's documentaries and investigations unit, APM Reports. She earned a master's degree in digital and visual media as a U.S. Fulbright scholar in Spain, and has reported from the Arctic to the Antarctic for national and international media and from Minnesota and Oregon for The Washington Post.