Joe Wilson
R · U.S. House, SC-2 · Tier 1
Tier 1, “Firmly pro-Israel”
Chaired the House Foreign Affairs Middle East subcommittee in 2023–24 and is the lead author of a run of Israel bills: the United States-Israel Defense Partnership Act (H.R.1229, February 2025, with Democrat Donald Norcross), the U.S.-Israel Anti-Tunnel Cooperation Enhancement Act (H.R.7866, April 2024), the U.S.-Israel Partnership and Abraham Accords Enhancement Act (June 2023) and a December 2023 resolution condemning CNN over its October 7 photographers. In August 2025 he backed Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza — “I support @IsraeliPM's proposal to provide governance to Gaza” — calling it “Mutually beneficial to everyone”; he called the ICC “Long an anti-semitic organization” over the Netanyahu warrants (November 2024), and when CodePink activists asked him about children killed in Gaza in April 2025 he answered “Human shields”, as Quds News Network reported. He voted for every tracked Israel measure he was present for — the 2023–24 supplementals, censuring Tlaib, H.Res.894, the 2024 bill forcing delivery of paused weapons and both ICC-sanctions bills — and against the Greene (2025) and Massie (2026) cuts, and was an original cosponsor of the July 2026 bill to replace UNRWA. Asked in iVoterGuide’s 2026 general-election questionnaire whether the U.S. relationship with Israel is important, Wilson answered: “The United States relationship with Israel is incredibly important and I am grateful to have them as our strongest ally in that region.” In January 2024 he signed the Smith–Manning letter, whose signers “thoroughly reject” South Africa’s “charge of genocide” against Israel.
A clean 1. Wilson writes Israel legislation as a matter of course — the 2025 US-Israel Defense Partnership Act, the anti-tunnel and Abraham Accords bills, the CNN resolution — and chaired the House Middle East subcommittee through the first year of the genocide. In April 2024 he and Josh Gottheimer led a letter urging Speaker Johnson to bring the Senate’s aid package to an immediate vote so that “critical aid is delivered to Israel and our other democratic allies”; he was the only Republican among its 90 signers. His rhetoric is hardline: endorsing Israel’s plan to take over Gaza, “Hamas must be eliminated and have no future in Gaza”, and “Human shields” as his answer on children killed. His one Gaza-food line came as a benefit of Israeli control of Gaza, in the same post as protecting Israeli civilians from Hamas rockets, so it is not concern for Palestinian civilians in its own right. No real counter-case: his absence on the September 2026 anti-boycott vote is a missed vote, not a break.
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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).