Sullivan dodges question on whether there will be restrictions on aid to Israel

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan sidestepped a question Sunday on whether the Biden administration would support restrictions on aid to Israel.

CBS’s Margaret Brennan asked Sullivan about President Biden’s response to a question on some Democrats’ calls to put conditions on military aid to Israel, where he said it was a “worthwhile thought.” Sullivan clarified Biden’s comments, explaining that Biden emphasized how his own diplomacy helped secure the hostage deal and the pause in fighting.

“That has all been the result of what President Biden has described as the approach that he has taken in this conflict. And when he answered that question, he acknowledged the idea, but then he said in the same breath, that the approach that he has taken is what has been generating results,” Sullivan said on “Face the Nation.” 

“And we’re seeing those results now day by day as we see loved ones returned to their families, a pause in the fighting and a substantial surge in humanitarian assistance going in, that is all the result of American diplomacy that was not inevitable,” he said. 

When pressed further on whether Biden was suggesting that there would not be any restrictions, Sullivan did not say whether the Biden administration would back restrictions on Israel. 

“The President made clear in his comments that he thought the approach that he is taking, is the approach that has generated the results that we have seen so far. And he is going to continue to engage in exactly that kind of diplomacy,” he said. 

A growing number of Democrats are pushing for conditions on additional military aid to Israel. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a New York Times op-ed last week that the “blank check approach” to Israel “must end.”

“The United States must make clear that while we are friends of Israel, there are conditions to that friendship and that we cannot be complicit in actions that violate international law and our own sense of decency,” he wrote. 

The war in Gaza has killed more than 12,000 Palestinians since it began early last month, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. More than 1,200 were killed in the initial Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 and another 240 people were taken hostage by the militants.