WASHINGTON, June 18 — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today released the following statement in response to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s claims that the United States should be supplying Israel with additional weapons and ammunitions in its war against Gaza:
Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu put out a video attacking the United States for not sending him bombs fast enough. No doubt, we will hear similar complaints when he addresses Congress on July 24.
Virtually everyone recognizes Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorism and respond to the horrific October 7th Hamas attack that killed 1,200 innocent Israelis and took hundreds of hostages. But the Israeli government did not and does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people. Yet that is exactly what has happened.
Let’s be clear: the right wing, extremist Netanyahu government has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and injured nearly 85,000, sixty percent of whom are women, children, or elderly.
After displacing nearly 1.8 million people from their homes, it has damaged or destroyed more than 60 percent of the housing stock in Gaza.
It has devastated the civilian infrastructure, including water and sewage systems. Today, despite extraordinarily high temperatures, there is virtually no electricity in Gaza.
The health care system has been decimated, with 19 hospitals knocked out of service and more than 400 healthcare workers killed.
The education system has also been devastated – 88 percent of all school buildings have sustained damage, and all twelve of Gaza’s universities have been bombed, leaving 625,000 students with no access to education.
According to humanitarian organizations, hundreds of thousands of people face possible famine. Already, more than 8,000 children under the age of five have been diagnosed with acute malnutrition, the result of the Netanyahu government’s restrictions on humanitarian aid.
Given all of this, it is easy to understand why Netanyahu is credibly accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court and the United Nations. He is beholden to extreme racists in Israel and has devoted his career to undermining the prospects for a two-state solution and lasting peace.
It is absurd that Netanyahu has been invited to address Congress. We should not be honoring people who use the starvation of children as a weapon of war. Instead, the United States should be withholding all offensive military aid to Israel and using our leverage to demand an end to this war, the unfettered flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, a stop to the killing of Palestinians in the West Bank, and initial steps towards a two-state solution.
