‘Broken clock right twice a day’: El-Sayed embraces Trump-announced end to US aid for Israel

Democratic Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed touts US President Donald Trump’s Tuesday announcement that the US will cease providing military aid to Israel at the end of this year.

“A broken clock is right twice a day. I think the president is actually right on this policy. I’d also like to see us stop selling weaponry that gets used to do the worst things, including genocide and apartheid to Israel. We have a responsibility to keep that money here to invest in the things that we need here,” El-Sayed tells NPR in an interview.

Most US aid to Israel is required to be spent on American-produced weapons.

Trump claimed that he had agreed with Netanyahu to wrap up US aid to Israel by the end of 2026, even though the premier has talked about winding it down gradually over a ten-year period. The current aid package for Israel isn’t supposed to expire until the end of 2028.

Trump said he was moving to halt US aid at the behest of Netanyahu, insisting that Israel no longer needs it, while arguing that the shift would rob “lunatics” like El-Sayed of the ability to call out the US for providing more military aid to Israel than any other country.

Fresh off his Tuesday victory over Republican Mike Rogers, El-Sayed reiterates his support for “dignifying the idea of equal rights to peace, dignity and self-determination for Palestinian and Jewish Israelis alike.”

“What we’ve often done is trick ourselves by saying the phrase two-state solution, while we subsidize and aid, arm and abet the very people who are trying to foreclose on the possibility of a Palestinian state,” he adds.

He goes on to express his support for probes into Israel at the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, which the Trump administration has worked aggressively to halt.

“I think we should be being objective about the way that we treat Israel, just like we treat any other country,” El-Sayed adds.