Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has issued a stern call for lawmakers to reject a proposal to send Israel additional military assistance to bolster its assault on Gaza as the Palestinian death toll surpasses 22,000.
On Tuesday, Sanders released a statement calling for “no more U.S. funding for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s illegal and immoral war against the Palestinian people,” saying that Congress should reject the proposed funding bill that would send $10.1 billion in military funding to Israel on top of the billions in military assistance that the U.S. already sends each year.
“The issue we face with Israel-Gaza is not complicated,” Sanders said.
Noting that he believes Hamas’s October 7 attack was the beginning of the current conflict — perhaps overlooking the decades of Israeli apartheid and occupation in Palestine leading up to the attack — Sanders continued, “we must also recognize that Israel’s military response has been grossly disproportionate, immoral, and in violation of international law. And, most importantly for Americans, we must understand that Israel’s war against the Palestinian people has been significantly waged with U.S. bombs, artillery shells, and other forms of weaponry.”
Indeed, U.S. intelligence reports have found that a whopping 22,000 of the bombs that Israeli forces dropped on Gaza in the first month and a half of Israel’s current assault were U.S.-made. These bombs could have been drawn from many sources: the over 70,000 weapons that the U.S. has sent to Israel over the past decades, the normally highly guarded U.S. weapons stockpile that officials are allowing Israeli forces to access, or the thousands of bombs and weapons that Biden administration officials are currently secretively funneling to Israeli forces.
The administration has been so determined to send more weapons to Israel, in fact, that it has now twice circumvented Congress in order to approve arms sales. President Joe Biden was behind the request for $10.1 billion in military assistance to Israel, which is awaiting approval from Congress.
Sanders highlighted the brutality of Israel’s assault in his statement, noting that 85 percent of people in Gaza have been forcibly displaced, 70 percent of homes in Gaza have been destroyed and the entire population of Gaza is going hungry.
“Today, not only are the vast majority of people in Gaza homeless, they lack food, water, medical supplies, and fuel,” the senator said. “The chief economist at the World Food Program said the humanitarian disaster in Gaza is among the worst he has ever seen. This cannot be allowed to continue.”
“Congress is working to pass a supplemental funding bill that includes $10 billion of unconditional military aid for the right-wing Netanyahu government to continue its brutal war against the Palestinian people,” Sanders continued. “Enough is enough. Congress must reject that funding. The taxpayers of the United States must no longer be complicit in destroying the lives of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza.”
Sanders has continually spoken out against the supplemental aid bill. Last month, he sent a letter to Biden asking the president to reject the funding bill, urging him to back a “humanitarian ceasefire,” and reverse the U.S.’s stance on vetoing UN legislation calling for a ceasefire and the release of all hostages. However, Sanders has refused to call for a permanent ceasefire, making him the target of ire of Palestinian rights advocates who maintain that a ceasefire is the only way to begin ushering lasting peace for Palestinians.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 253 new monthly donors in the next 3 days.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy