On Thursday Nov. 12, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) announced that he would be challenging veteran Senate leader and AIPAC darling Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for Senate Majority Leader. Van Hollen, of course, draped himself in the mid-term flag to call for substantive change: “In this election, the American people called for change. They called for a change from Donald Trump’s disastrous policies—but even bigger than that, a change from the status quo that isn’t working for working people…. This is not about any one person—it’s about answering the call of the American people. That is why I’m running for Senate Majority Leader.”

Van Hollen has usefully launched an initiative to block the proposed US-Israel defense and intelligence merger contained in sections 1217, 219 and 618 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). In a letter directed to Congressional leaders, he expressed concern that the provisions “would lock in long-term commitments despite our serious concerns with the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza, the West Bank, and other parts of the region.”

However, in the same letter Van Hollen called for further arming Ukraine in NATO’s surrogate war against Russia. “The Netanyahu government has already leveraged its existing coproduction agreement with the United States on missile defense to block American Iron Dome batteries from reaching Ukraine, in direct opposition to U.S. national security interests.”