A bipartisan group of House members reintroduced a bill on Wednesday to allow the president to provide Israel with bunker-buster bombs — the heavy ordnance used by the U.S. against Iran’s Fordow and Natanz nuclear facilities — and the planes needed to drop them.

The bill is part of a long-standing effort led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), one of its lead sponsors, to give the administration the option to provide Israel the capabilities to act independently against Iran’s most highly fortified nuclear facilities. The legislation’s sponsors argue that it remains relevant even in the aftermath of the U.S. strikes in the event Iran attempts to reconstitute its nuclear program.

Transferring the systems — which are unique to the U.S. — to Israel has been seen by some experts as a way to ensure Israel has the ability to destroy underground nuclear sites in Iran while avoiding direct U.S. involvement in the conflict.

Stating that Israel and other U.S. allies should be “prepared for all contingencies if Iran pursues development of a nuclear weapon” and that the U.S. must “send a clear signal to Iran that development of a nuclear weapon will never be tolerated,” the bill authorizes the president, at his discretion, to take steps to transfer the bombs and aircraft to Israel for the purpose of striking Iran’s nuclear sites, if certain conditions are met.

If the president certifies to Congress that Iran has violated or changed its implementation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or reduced access for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors such that they cannot fully verify Iran’s nuclear material and activities and that Israel has no other method to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, then the president would be authorized to transfer the bunker busters and aircraft.

Under the legislation, either the president or, by his delegation, the secretary of defense would be authorized to give the order to transfer the weapons.

Iran is currently in violation of its NPT obligations and has limited access for IAEA inspectors, enacting a law on Wednesday suspending cooperation with the body.

In advance of the potential transfer, the legislation authorizes the administration to build infrastructure in Israel to allow Israel to host and operate the relevant systems — which Israel currently does not have — including extended runways for the aircraft and facilities to house the aircraft and store the bunker busters. It also authorizes the administration to store bunker busters in U.S. facilities in Israel.

The legislation also allows the U.S. to train Israeli personnel in the use of the bunker busters, and to engage in joint research with Israel to improve U.S. weapons and develop weaponry to destroy Iran’s underground nuclear facilities and Hezbollah’s underground rocket storage sites.

The bill further states that the U.S. should “seek to extend limitations on Iran’s enriched uranium, including through engagement in multilateral diplomatic initiatives,” and notes that the legislation does not constitute an authorization for use of military force against Iran.

The bill is led by Gottheimer and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), and co-sponsored by Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Juan Vargas (D-CA) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY).

“It’s a pivotal moment to see what happens in terms of Iran agreeing … not to develop a nuclear weapon or not, to continue their nuclear program proliferation or not, to let in monitors or not,” Gottheimer told Jewish Insider. “This [bill] is poised to see what Iran does moving forward, and obviously why it gives the president discretion to make the decision on selling these weapons to Israel.”

Gottheimer said that whether the bunker busters will be needed again in the future is “really dependent upon what Iran does next.”

“If Iran continues to develop its program, we cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” he said. “If Iran decides to reconstitute its program and move ahead and break out and go to 90% enrichment, I think you want to make sure that they’re strongly deterred from doing so.”

Lawler said that the bill is a “bipartisan stand to protect Israel and stop Iran’s nuclear threat. Iran’s uranium stockpile makes clear that the danger is real. This bill gives the president the authority to equip Israel with the tools and training they need to deter Tehran and make the world a safer place.”

Tyler Stapleton, the director of government relations at FDD Action, a lobbying group affiliated with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which is supporting the bill, said that, following the U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran, “it remains critical that the U.S. continue to support Israel in training and equipping its forces to target and destroy fortified nuclear facilities that could be rebuilt in the coming years.”

“The United States should assist Israel in developing the capability to store bunker-buster munitions and create an aerial delivery system that can be deployed independently by Israeli forces if necessary,” Stapleton said. “Congress should authorize the Department of Defense to take these actions without delay, ensuring both the U.S. and Israel retain the operational flexibility needed to counter the ongoing threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.”

In my years of covering politics, it’s pretty rare for mainstream Jewish organizations to be wildly out of step with the predominant views of the Democratic Party. But in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s decision to order bunker-busting strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites over the weekend, the views of the institutional Jewish community and many rank-and-file Democrats couldn’t have been more divergent.

Consider: The American Jewish Committee’s CEO Ted Deutch, a former Democratic congressman, praised Trump’s decision and called it “an historic moment for the United States, Israel and the world.” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt thanked Trump for “holding true to the commitment that the United States will not stand by and watch the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and antisemitism develop nuclear weapons.”

Even the more-partisan Democratic pro-Israel group DMFI, which normally can be counted on to criticize the president, rejected its own party’s predominant view that further congressional approval should have been received before the strikes. “Iran was unwilling to give up its nuclear program through diplomatic negotiations across three different administrations, so the United States was left with no choice but to take decisive military action,” DMFI CEO Brian Romick said.

By contrast, it was tough to find many Democratic lawmakers — even among the many who are typical allies of Israel — to offer praise of the strikes severely degrading Iran’s nuclear program. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who earlier this month recorded a video taunting Trump for “folding” against Iran, criticized the president for carrying out the strikes without congressional authority. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), one of the strongest pro-Israel stalwarts in the Democratic Party, likewise withheld support for striking Iran’s nuclear facilities while also reiterating her view that Iran should never be able to obtain a nuclear weapon. Like Schumer, she called on more congressional involvement.

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), another strong pro-Israel ally running as the moderate Democrat in a Michigan Senate primary, sounded wary about the U.S. decision to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities. “The last thing our country needs is to be involved in another foreign war,” she said, echoing rhetoric from more progressive voices in the party.

To be sure, there have been a handful of Democrats sounding like the pro-Israel lawmakers that once dominated the party. Just look at the comments from Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ),  Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL),  Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH), Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), all of whom described the all-too-urgent threat that a nuclear Iran posed to Israel and the world.

As one pro-Israel Democrat put it to JI: There were notably more Democrats putting out statements cheering anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil being released from immigration detention than those expressing solidarity with Israel in its time of great need.

The debate over dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions has been a fraught one within the Democratic Party, ever since former President Barack Obama cut a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 that many pro-Israel leaders found too accommodating towards the Islamic Republic. There were very messy internal divisions in the party back then as well.

But with public support for Israel among Democratic voters waning, according to recent polling, it looks like it’s getting harder for even sympathetic Democrats to vocally support the position, as Landsman did, that preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is a step towards peace. It’s possible to quibble with the administration’s lack of legislative outreach while also acknowledging the positive end result.

On national security, this is becoming a moment of truth for the Democratic Party at large, which is trying to moderate its record to win back power in Washington, but still is beholden to its activist base. The fact that Zohran Mamdani, a radical anti-Israel candidate defending the slogan “globalize the intifada” is running as competitively as he is in tomorrow’s New York City Democratic mayoral primary, is a sign of where the party could be headed without more mainstream leaders speaking out.