Cliff Bentz
R · U.S. House, OR-2 · Tier 1/2
Tier 1/2, between “Firmly pro-Israel” and “Mainstream pro-Israel”
Oregon Republican whose November 2023 statement on Israel lists the pro-Israel bills he has backed and says “Israel has the right to defend itself, and I stand with Israel”; in the same statement he wrote that there are “thousands of innocent victims in both Israel and Gaza who are being impacted by this senseless war started and perpetuated by Hamas” and that “we must do what we can to help them.” He has voted the pro-Israel side of every tracked measure — Iron Dome replenishment (2021), the 2023–24 Israel supplementals, H.Res.894, the Antisemitism Awareness Act, the May 2024 bill to force the paused bomb shipment (H.R.8369), both ICC-sanctions bills, the Gaza casualty-figures amendment and the September 2026 anti-boycott bill — and against the 2025 Greene and July 2026 Massie cuts, and he cosponsored the October 2023 “Standing with Israel” resolution. He backed the June 2025 U.S. strikes on Iran. In January 2024 he signed the Smith–Manning letter, whose signers “thoroughly reject” South Africa’s “charge of genocide” against Israel.
A 1/2, not a clean 1. His votes are zero-daylight and he has authored no Israel legislation (none among 33 sponsored measures), so there is no leadership on the issue. His line about Gaza's “innocent victims” and helping them is real acknowledgment of Palestinian suffering, but it sits in the same statement as “Israel has the right to defend itself” and lays the war entirely on Hamas, and no later statement repeats it, so it does not amount to concern apart from the war's aims. Counter-case: a flat 2 if that November 2023 line is read as concern of his own for Palestinian civilians.
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elect26 places 2026 midterm candidates on a six-tier spectrum, from 1 (most pro-Israel) to 6 (most critical of Israel).