Mandela Barnes

Barnes has never served in Congress, so he has no tracked floor votes on U.S. aid to Israel; his record on the topic is a set of dated statements, most of them from his 2021-22 U.S. Senate campaign. In a December 2021 Jewish Insider profile he said he would always support funding for Israel 'that goes toward legitimate security purposes' while wanting to ensure no American taxpayer dollars went toward home demolitions, forced evacuations or new settlements; he said he had not read Rep. Betty McCollum's bill restricting U.S. military assistance to Israel and, per Jewish Insider, 'was otherwise reticent on what approach he would take', and he called military spending 'something that's always difficult for me, just in general'. The same profile recorded his 2012 trip to Israel on an African-American leadership tour sponsored by the AIPAC-affiliated American Israel Education Foundation, which he later called 'the AIPAC-tilt trip', and J Street's backing of him alongside three rivals in the 2022 Senate primary. At a June 2022 Jewish Democratic Council of America candidate forum he affirmed continued U.S. aid, said 'I do support the MOU' and that he 'would have voted' for the September 2021 House supplemental for Israel's Iron Dome missile-defence system, and made no mention of conditions or restrictions; Jewish Insider reported this as effectively distancing him from his earlier, less forthcoming answers, and he stated opposition to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement both in December 2021 and at that forum. In August 2022 the Washington Free Beacon reported that he had been a member of Peace Action Wisconsin, a group it characterised as 'one of the most vocal anti-Israel groups in the state'; the group's office manager told the outlet, 'He used to come here and sit at our meeting table and be part of our meetings.' Running for governor in 2026, Barnes attended the July 1, 2026 Wisconsin Muslim Civic Alliance and Wisconsin Muslim Civic Foundation gubernatorial forum in Oak Creek and answered its yes-or-no lightning round, where, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel citing a livestream of the event, all candidates in attendance including Barnes said they believed Israel's actions in Gaza constitute genocide and said they would seek to repeal a 2018 Wisconsin law barring state and local governments from doing business with or investing in companies that participate in boycotts of Israel. That law is 2017 Wisconsin Act 248, enacted after Barnes had left the state Assembly in 2017, and the pending repeal measure was drafted with his primary rival Rep. Francesca Hong as lead author, not Barnes. Searches this session found no statement by Barnes, in 2023 or later, on whether the United States should keep sending weapons or money to the government of Israel, and neither his campaign platform page nor his endorsement page mentions the subject.