WASHINGTON—Despite a growing mountain of evidence the right-wing nationalist Israeli government and its military are violating U.S. law and international standards, senators, fearing political retribution and right-wing campaign cash, again voted down bids by Vermont independent Bernie Sanders to cut off U.S. military aid to Israel.
By votes of 82-15 against and 83-15 against, they rejected two Sanders motions to dislodge aid cutoff resolutions from Senate committees, where leaders had sent the moves for burial. The votes will let another $12.5 billion in U.S. military aid go through, much of it for 1-ton bombs, heavy munitions and advanced detection technology.
In an April 4 speech, Sanders again made the case for the aid cutoffs, noting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke a cease-fire negotiated with Hamas, the group whose Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in southern Israel were followed by the ensuing war and genocidal campaign by Israel against the Palestinian people.
The labor movement in the U.S. favors a negotiated cease-fire and settlement talks between Israel and the Palestinians. But younger unionists, notably among the Auto Workers, increasingly demand a complete U.S. aid cutoff and an end to ties between U.S. universities and Israel.
While Israel “has the right to defend itself,” Netanyahu’s “racist, extremist” retaliation far exceeds norms and U.S. law, Sanders said. The law bans use of U.S. military aid for offensive war against civilians, including women and children. He reported civilians are 60% of the dead in Gaza.
The U.S.-provided bombs, munitions and technological support has also made Gaza “a wasteland for human life,” Sanders declared. Without an aid cutoff, “The U.S. is complicit” in Netanyahu’s carnage.
The one factor the senator left out of his equation is the U.S. military-industrial-complex. Most military aid the U.S. has sent to Israel, including the latest installment Trump seeks, actually is turned around and spent on U.S.-made bombs, planes, drones, arms, technical support and ammo. That money enhances the profits of U.S. aircraft and munitions manufacturers.
Israeli retaliation has produced at least 50,000 dead Gazans, a total Sanders said grows by up to 100 a day and complete destruction of Gazan infrastructure, including schools, hospitals, housing, water systems and electricity. There’s also been a month-long Israeli embargo of all incoming humanitarian aid. That leaves the remaining two million Gazans starving. “Children have literally starved to death,” Sanders added.
Israeli bombing also killed aid workers, and a military coverup of the circumstances, and, according to trackers of journalistic freedom, at least 166 dead media workers.
Further, Sanders said, Netanyahu seems to turn a blind eye to white nationalist U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans to evict the remaining two million Palestinians from Gaza and turn it into a U.S.-held and U.S.-owned resort for the rich. Trump’s family members would own the resort.
Sanders blamed rejection of his anti-aid moves on several factors. One is Trump’s clout within the GOP and lawmakers’ fear of his wrath. But a big reason the aid continues, Sanders said, is retaliation threats by Trump’s puppeteer, multibillionaire Elon Musk, and campaign contributions by the notorious far-right American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Lawmakers fear AIPAC would pour millions of dollars into campaigns by foes of lawmakers skeptical of unquestioned U.S. fealty to Netanyahu, said Sanders, the only senator to have actually lived in Israel, for a year, but long before Netanyahu took power there.
“We now have a corrupt campaign finance system that allows billionaires to buy elections and to influence major pieces of legislation. That, I think, is not a secret to the American people,” Sanders told his colleagues.
“If you are a Republican and you vote against the Trump-Musk administration in one way or another, you have got to look over your shoulder and worry you are going to get a call from Musk, the wealthiest man in the world.
“He will tell you that if you vote against what he wants”—including voting against aid to Israel—”he will spend unlimited amounts of money to defeat you in the next election. That is not a great secret. That is what Musk has been saying publicly.
“If you are a Democrat, you have to worry about the billionaires who fund AIPAC. If you vote against Prime Minister Netanyahu and his horrific war in Gaza, AIPAC will punish you with millions of dollars in advertisements and other ways to see that you are defeated.
“AIPAC’s PAC [campaign finance committee] and super PAC spent nearly $127 million combined during the 2023-2024 election cycle,” said Sanders, citing federal records. “And I must confess AIPAC has been successful. Last year, they defeated two members of the House who opposed providing military aid to Netanyahu’s extremist government.
“Given all of that, I would hope Democrats and Republicans who understand they were elected to protect the interests of their constituents, not billionaire campaign contributors, would support the ending of Citizens United”—the 2010 Supreme Court ruling opening the floodgates for unlimited corporate cash to campaigns—”and would move us toward public funding of elections so billionaires could not continue to control the political and legislative process.
“I would hope both parties would move to…keep the super PAC money, Musk money, AIPAC money out…I would hope that that would be the case so that we can, once again, become a government of the people, by the people, for the people, and not a government run by the billionaire class.”
Sanders marshaled even more data about the Israeli destruction of Gaza.
“Let us be clear: Prime Minister Netanyahu’s racist and extremist government has waged an all-out, barbaric war against the Palestinian people and made life unlivable in Gaza,” he declared.
Besides the 50,000 dead Gazans another 113,000 have been injured—“60% of whom are women, children, and elderly people. That is 7.4% of the population of Gaza killed or wounded…in a year and a half. If those same percentages were applied to the United States…over 25 million Americans would have been killed or wounded.”
“Almost no part of Gaza has been left unscathed. Most of the population now is living in tents or other makeshift structures. Most of the territory’s hospitals and primary healthcare facilities have been bombed, leaving virtually all Gazans without basic medical care at a time when bombs are flying.”
Sanders noted 35% of U.S. voters either want to cut or cut off further military aid to Israel, compared to 15% supporting increases in the latest opinion polls. Forty-seven percent of Democrats oppose more aid, while 8% support it. Independents are split 43%-35% for increasing or maintaining aid, while Republicans favor increasing or maintaining aid by a 60%-25% margin.
And while AIPAC pushes more aid and unquestioning fealty to Netanyahu, polls for the progressive, pro-ceasefire Jewish organization J Street show 62% support for reducing aid, Sanders added.
All this did not sway senators and it’s not expected to sway the Israeli government.
Netanyahu is an Israeli version of Trump, catering to ultra-right nationalists. Like Trump, Netanyahu is enmeshed in financial scandals. He met his cohort Trump at the White House on April 7.
The prime topics between the two were Israel’s continued war on Gaza and its people, and Trump’s tariffs, scheduled to be 17% against Israeli goods. He sent Netanyahu home with promises to cut those to 10 percent. The Trump tariffs have upended supply chains worldwide and set off a trade war reminiscent of the 1930s, when an even worse trade war deepened and lengthened the worldwide Great Depression. Trump’s hope, as what happened with Netanyahu, is that foreign leaders will come to him, bow down, and seek better deals on a variety of issues.
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