Sen. Bernie Sanders to try to block new U.S. arms sales to Israel

Ind. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. | AP

WASHINGTON–Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., will try to block $20 billion in new U.S. arms sales to the extreme nationalist government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In a Sept. 18 Senate floor speech, Sanders declared, again, that Netanyahu’s Israeli military is violating U.S. foreign aid laws by using U.S.-paid-for and U.S.-made bombs, ammo, and warplanes to attack and murder tens of thousands of innocent civilians, more than half of them women and children.

“Put simply, providing more offensive weapons to continue this disastrous war would be immoral.  It would also be illegal,” said Sanders, the sole senator to ever have lived in Israel, but long before Netanyahu took power there.

Sanders promised to file joint resolutions stopping sales of offensive weapons to Israel while keeping sales of defensive weapons, such as the Iron Dome defense against incoming missiles.

Democratic President Joe Biden announced the $20 billion in deals during the congressional recess. As of September 23, Sanders had yet to drop his anti-weapons resolutions in the hopper. The sales of offensive arms “also undermine U.S. policy goals,” including ongoing negotiations for a ceasefire, Sanders said.

The new sales include Joint Direct Attack Munitions, 120mm tank rounds, 120mm high explosive mortar rounds, medium tactical vehicles, and up to 50 new F-15 fighter planes. All are manufactured by top U.S. military contractors, who profit from the sales.

Sanders’s prior effort to shut off the arms sales failed early this year, 11-82. That failure let the arms continue to flow to Netanyahu’s military. The aid kept its carnage against the Gazans going. Israel has also cut off humanitarian aid shipments to Gaza, Sanders said. “Aid organizations estimate some 495,000 Palestinians face starvation,” he added.

And he reiterated the prime minister is not concerned about the fate of approximately 100 hostages, most of them Israelis, which the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas has now held for almost a year.

Instead, Sanders said, Netanyahu is keeping the war on Gaza going for his own political purposes: To justify his continuing reign. The prime minister knows if a ceasefire and negotiations for a settlement of the conflict occur, his right-wing coalition falls apart, he loses the office, and Israel’s non-partisan Attorney General reactivates the corruption indictment against him.

Claims Biden is trying

Biden “has been trying to reach a ceasefire deal that would secure the release of the hostages and allow massive amounts of humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza,” Sanders explained. “But every time a deal appears close, Netanyahu moves the goalposts, introducing new demands and torpedoing the deal.

“It is clear that Netanyahu is prolonging the war to cling to power and avoid prosecution at home for corruption. That is why hundreds of thousands of Israelis routinely take to the streets to protest his policies.”

Netanyahu’s right-wing government has left Gaza in ruins, with at least 41,000 dead, 95,000 injured, all of its hospitals smashed, no running water, spotty electricity, and more than two million refugees. Now hundreds have been killed in the Israeli bombing of Lebanon.

“As I have said many times, Israel had an absolute right to respond to defend itself. But, tragically, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s extremist government has not simply waged war against Hamas. It has waged an all-out war against the Palestinian people,” Sanders said. He made that statement before the killing of hundreds of Lebanese civilians this week.

“Israel has conducted this war with little regard for innocent civilians, bombing indiscriminately and severely restricting the humanitarian relief operation…Netanyahu’s policies trampled on international law, made life unlivable in Gaza, and created one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history.

“Raw sewage runs through the streets, spreading disease. Clean water is still in short supply. Most of the roads are impassable, torn up by bombing and bulldozers.

“But it’s not just infrastructure. The Netanyahu government systematically devastated the healthcare system in Gaza, knocking 19 hospitals out of service and killing more than 800 healthcare workers.

“The World Health Organization recorded thousands of attacks on healthcare facilities. With the collapse of the healthcare system under this strain, diseases like hepatitis, dysentery, polio, and other infections have taken hold.”

Biden’s latest arms sales, which run counter to his denunciations of Netanyahu for going too far in the war on Gaza, were a big topic of the weekly session of the Progressive Democrats of America on September 22. New Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, Biden’s VP, gave Netanyahu a stern and public blast, focusing on the humanitarian catastrophe when the PM visited D.C. recently.

“Biden has come out for more weapons” for Netanyahu, said top PDA official John Nichols. “Jewish Voice for Peace and others are calling for us to cease support” for Biden’s arms sales.

Nichols urged the more than 180 activists on the Zoom conference call to lobby their senators and provided a list of lawmakers who, at one point or another, have supported ceasefire demands in Israel’s war on Gaza.

The list includes Democratic Sens. Cory Booker (N.J.), Laphonza Butler (Calif.), Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Tim Kaine (Va.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Ben Ray Lujan (N.M.), Chris Murphy (Conn.), Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Chris Van Hollen (Md.) and Peter Welch (Vt.) as well as Republican Rand Paul (Ky.).

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CONTRIBUTOR

Mark Gruenberg

Award-winning journalist Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but tough when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners.