Senator Bernie Sanders on Saturday called for US aid to Israel to be conditioned, despite the fact that it is in the midst of a war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
In a statement, Sanders acknowledged that Hamas started the war “by slaughtering 1,200 innocent Israeli men, women, and children and taking over 200 hostages” and said that “Israel absolutely has the right to defend itself”.
At the same time, he criticized the Israeli government, saying, “Netanyahu’s right-wing extremist government does not have the right to wage almost total warfare against the Palestinian people. That is morally unacceptable and in violation of international law. Displacing 1.6 million people from their homes, cutting off food, water, medical supplies, and fuel, and killing some 12,000 Palestinians – nearly half of whom are children – is in violation of every code of human decency. It must stop.”
Noting that the US provides $3.8 billion a year in aid to Israel and the Biden administration wants $14.3 billion more, Sanders wrote, “The Netanyahu government, or hopefully a new Israeli government, must understand that not one penny will be coming to Israel from the US unless there is a fundamental change in their military and political positions.”
He suggested conditions that must be imposed upon any aid to Israel, including “an end to the indiscriminate bombing which has taken thousands of civilian lives and a significant pause in military operations so that massive humanitarian assistance can come into the region, the right of displaced Gazans to return to their homes, no long-term Israeli re-occupation or blockade of Gaza, an end to settler violence in the West Bank and a freeze on settlement expansion” and “a commitment to broad peace talks for a two-state solution in the wake of the war.”
Sanders has been critical of Israel’s government in the past, referring to it as “racist” and suggesting there “should be strings attached” to the US military aid to Israel.
In 2019, Sanders caused an uproar when he told the J Street conference that the US should redirect its aid to Israel and give it to Gaza instead.
Several weeks ago, he criticized Israel’s operation in Gaza, writing on X, “The disaster in Gaza cannot continue. The world must act to save innocent lives. But just as a humanitarian response is critical, it is equally important to lay out a path to a two-state solution and a democratic Palestine. Israel cannot bomb its way to a long-term solution.”
Israel's Ambassador to the US, Michael Herzog, later fired back at Sanders and wrote, “Whoever wants to see a ‘democratic Palestine’, must support the defeat of Hamas.”
“16 years of Hamas' rule of Gaza, since taking over in a bloody coup, produced only misery for Gaza's citizens, tens of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli population centers (including nearly 9,000 since the beginning of this war), and numerous armed clashes with Israel - all culminating in the unimaginably atrocious terror attack on October 7,” added Ambassador Herzog.
“How exactly do you, Senator Sanders, propose to defeat these genocidal extremists - who hide behind innocent civilians and use them as human shields?” he concluded.