On Wednesday, Sanders introduced six resolutions blocking six sales of different weapons contained within the $20 billion weapons deal announced by the Biden administration in August. The sales include many of the types of weapons that Israel has used in its relentless campaign of extermination in Gaza over the past year.
“Sending more weapons is not only immoral, it is also illegal. The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act lay out clear requirements for the use of American weaponry – Israel has egregiously violated those rules,” said Sanders. “There is a mountain of documentary evidence demonstrating that these weapons are being used in violation of U.S. and international law.”
This will be the first time in history that Congress has ever voted on legislation to block a weapons sale to Israel, as the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project pointed out. This is despite the U.S. having sent Israel over $250 billion in military assistance in recent decades, according to analyst Stephen Semler, as Israel has carried out ethnic cleansings and massacres across Palestine and in Lebanon.
The resolutions are not likely to pass; even if they did pass the heavily pro-Israel Congress, they would likely be vetoed by President Joe Biden, who has been insistent on sending weapons to Israel with no strings attached.
However, Sanders’s move is in line with public opinion. Polls have consistently found that the majority of the public supports an end to Israel’s genocide; a poll by the Institute for Global Affairs released this week found, for instance, that a majority of Americans think the U.S. should stop supporting Israel or make support contingent on Israeli officials’ agreement to a ceasefire deal. This includes nearly 80 percent of Democrats.
Bernie on the right side of history as usual.
Also just a little slow to come around to reality like always.
Edit… Down vote all you want I’m still a big Bernie fan but the whole US government has been on the wrong side of this war from the beginning. We treat Palestinian lives just like black and brown lives at home like they didn’t matter.
Lastly Hamas is not Palestinian I can support Palestinians and condemn Hamas.
He was criticizing the response since the beginning?
Frankly I was initially supporting them, as I am against Hamas but Israel lost the objective, didn’t destroy Hamas and didn’t get hostages out. So what was all that for?
Gaining more land, that is what it was for.
And so Netanyahu can avoid criminal prosecution.
Frankly I was initially supporting them,
Must be new to the long history of apartheid, genocidal, capitalist project that is “Israel”…
So what was all that for?
Zionists will only stop when they eradicate all Palestinians, because they believe they have a god-given right to be there. For them this is business as usual.
this guy has been saying this literally since the beginning
Incorrect, Sanders has been a Zionist for his career, it’s been his one split with the american left wing.
what you said, even if were to be true, does not contradict what I said so your comment does not make any sense
You don’t know what you’re talking about
And doing so in a way that is going to accomplish almost nothing while antagonizing and alienating the people who would let him otherwise get positive legislature passed.
He’s a fucking legend.
It’s easy to rage against the machine on a moral pedestal. It’s harder to actually steer the machine in the right direction.
To be clear, I am supportive of putting things to a vote even if there’s no chance it succeeds. Get the votes on record. I think that’s an important archive that can be used later in election season to hold politicians accountable for their votes.
I like what Bernie and AOC are doing when they push for these kinds of votes.
But make no mistake. They can only do this from a position of being unable to effect any change. Under normal conditions, moves like this poison the well and make others on both sides less willing to work with you.
They have the luxury of grandstanding specifically because they have zero hope of garnering support.
Someone like a president can’t really do something like this without completely burning their political capital.
Someone like a president can’t really do something like this without completely burning their political capital.
If only we had a president who is never going to hold office again and has nothing to lose right now… Damn our current pres is nothing like that
You realize his actions have a direct impact on Harris’ campaign… right?
You realise Biden’s current stance on Israel is unpopular by a vast majority of the Democratic voter base, right?
Yes and Harris complicity in continuing the genocide in Gaza, the ethnic cleansing in the Westbank and now the invasion of Lebanon will be the greatest risk for her election. But they would rather hand over the US to Trump on a silver plate, than to stop killing Arabs.
I think Russian propaganda will be the greatest threat to her campaign, actually
Well, he was also a part of blocking the military aid to Ukraine for all those months. But this one is good
That was also good. America is not the world police.
Hot take: Global geopolitics within the current rules as we understand it don’t allow for countries to genuinely respect each other as equals. Might will always be right on the global stage regardless of whether it should be that way. So when it comes to picking a global hegemon, the United States is really not a terrible choice compared with the alternatives.
We are also a part of nato.
Ukraine is not, objectively could not qualify before 2014 when it became good for the US war machine for them to qualify, and most importantly, NATO should’ve disbanded in 1991 when the sole reason for its existence fell.
Yeah, our country is shitty. I get the main reason the US joined the allies had more to do with politics then ideology. But least some kind of good comes from the US backing ukraine.
1991 when the sole reason for its existence fell
Russia still exists so what are you on about?
The soviet union doesn’t, but the power was always concentrated into Russia, and guess what, Russia wants their territory back now. The countries which existed under the USSR and never want Russian rule again? Russia sees them as rightfully theirs. I for one am glad to have NATO protection. And I’m glad something is being done to help our brothers in Ukraine, because they weren’t as lucky as we were, to join the EU and NATO.
Putin is running out of money.
Just thought you should be aware.
Don’t you mean left(ish)?
Yugoslavia certainly doesn’t think so.
Interesting, care to explain?
For those who don’t know (there are probably a few) Bernie is Jewish, and his opinions better reflect the rest of us Jews than the crazies on the right (and left) and in Israel. I don’t have stats, but every American Jew I’ve talked to about this has been morally outraged and frankly mortified by Israel’s actions. We understand how it looks to the rest of the world. Don’t let the antisemitism arguments (usually pushed by Christians btw) fool you. Bernie is on the right side of this issue, as usual.
Fellow American Jew here. Very much agreed. Israel doesn’t represent us, even if it tries to say it does.
Texan Jew here. I’m surrounded by a sea of monsters.
I’ve made documentaries, art projects, and memorials for family members who were in the Holocaust. A few survived (literally, like, 3 of them), but multitudes more were killed. My family and community has praised me for my passionate interest and attempts to teach younger generations the dangers of complacency and compartmentalizing. One of my relatives even helped pass a law adding Holocaust Remembrance Week as part of the curriculum for every grade level in Texas.
We’ve seen this kind of destruction before, we’ve lived this oppression and violence before. We have discussed how our family might have changed had over 90% of them not been killed.
HOW THE FUCK IS MY FAMILY AND COMMUNITY OKAY WITH ANOTHER GENOCIDE???
The self-delusion, what-abouts, stereotypes, and straight-up racist insults.
“They’d kill us if given the opportunity”
YOU’RE ALREADY KILLING THEM“These are really bad, violent people”
THEY ARE CHILDREN AND CIVILIANS AND THEY ARE DYING“It’s not comparable to the Holocaust. Germany killed 6 million…”
THAT’S YOUR FUCKING CUTOFF???
WE GOTTA WAIT FOR 6 MILLION PEOPLE TO DIE BEFORE WE CAN EMPATHIZE WITH VICTIMS OF GENOCIDE??? Where was this sense of calm and nonchalance when Nazis were posting propaganda around town? How many of your kids need to be dismembered and vaporized before you say “this is more than upsetting, this is WRONG”??!
I swear, I’m probably less than a month away from hearing someone I once respected say “the Palestinian cries out in pain as they hit you.”
Omfg I feel you so hard on this with a few people, but am fortunate to not be in Texas.
“Never again,” my ass. Those types of people mean only “never again for me and mine.” Genocide is genocide is genocide, regardless of whether we’re the victim or not.
Israel learned the wrong lesson from the Holocaust. They decided that the next time somebody gets stepped on, they’re going to be the boot, not the bug.
There are always amoral opportunists. Unfortunately, they are pulling the strings in Israel right now.
If good people don’t vote in the US in November, we will be no better.
“It’s not comparable to the Holocaust. Germany killed 6 million…”
There are fewer than 6 million people in all of Palestine. If that’s their cutoff, they can eradicate everyone and “it still wouldn’t be as bad.” That’s probably their thought process.
It wasn’t OK when the Egyptians and Germans did it to the Jews, and it’s not OK when the Jews are doing it to others too.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
Texan
Well there’s your problem
Beau of the fifth column (now it’s Belle on cam) is from the south and quite the interesting critter.
I don’t discount there being good people in Texas or elsewhere in the south, I just know there are a whole lot of bad people as well, who tend to be more likely to hold political power.
If you like hip-hop, listen to Anne Braden by Flobots
Another American Jew chiming in. Israel has never represented me. I’m from Indiana. I have far more in common with a Palestinian-American from Tuscon, Arizona than I do any Jew in Haifa.
no, you MUST identify with the vision of a Jewish ethnostate, it is after all supposed to be your ethnostate… you know, the one whose existence is, for a lot of people, literally justified by the 14 words (but replace white with Jewish)? /s.
Ever thus to ethno nationalism.
i sorta inferred this about american jews because doesn’t israel give economic incentives to jewish people moving to israel? so the fact that you don’t live in israel says something
And within israel as well.
This makes sense, because this isn’t an Israeli or Jewish endeavor. It’s Benjamin Netanyahu desperately provoking a war to maintain his grip on power, because as soon as he’s out of power he will have to be held accountable for his many crimes. Bibi would rather die in office than face that. It’s truly regrettable that his actions have soured the entire world’s opinion on Israel, but here we are.
Netanyahu is to blame for making the situation worse, and for actively working against a ceasefire, but I think it’s important to point out that the majority of Israelis appear to support his actions in Gaza. It’s definitely an Israeli issue and a Netanyahu issue.
The state of Israel in its inception was colonisation, apartheid, massacre, white supremacy, and genocide. Netanyahu is certainly a monster. But look at the rest of his cabinet. Listen to an interview with Israeli citizens even before October 7th in the way they speak about Palestinians and Arabs.
Israel is thoroughly and consistently sick from beginning to end, top to bottom. It’s a depraved machine of terror that runs on the blood of innocent people.
It seems to me they’re a country built on 19th century white colonialist values (Jewish white colonialism is no better than the once much more common Christian kind) and which has never evolved from those values but rather kept going until reaching the natural conclusion: Genocide.
(It’s not by chance that Israelis keep claiming that they have “Western Values” - it’s really just a politically correct way of saying “white values”)
Israel is similar to South-Africa, except that they were never forced to stop and just kept doubling down on the racism and violent oppression of the ethnicity they victimize.
I blame mainly the US and Germany for the continued support of Israel’s white colonialism and it’s natural outcome of Genocide.
Zionism has been a thing before bibi
his actions have soured the entire world’s opinion on Israel
Oh it began way before that…
It’s the Christian zionists here in the US that support this genocide because they think it will help expedite the end of the world
For reference, see New Apostolic Reformation and Seven Mountains
Shit is beyond crazy and terrifying.
The (Seven Mountain Mandate) movement was generally supportive of the presidency of Donald Trump, with member Paula White becoming Trump’s spiritual advisor. White claimed that Trump “will play a critical role in Armageddon as the United States stands alongside Israel in the battle against Islam.”
Fucking crazy shit, these people are insane and are actively trying to destroy the planet.
The more you know the worse it gets.
All the yelling about sharia was just another distraction to bring about “Christian” rule.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/marjorie-taylor-greene-christian-nationalism
The members of these groups are everywhere.
Some have become very vocal.
The work is done in silence.
If you want to get yourself fired from your shit job, remind your co-worker that their religious apocalyptic fantasies should at least lead them to doing the deed out in the parking lot, not in here where we live
****Don’t say that.
I realize this is very sensitive issue and things have likely changed since april, but the last time I saw this polled Jewish Americans support Israel’s response to Oct.7 about 62%, 33% oppose
Granted, since april and just off the top of my head, Israel has bombed a number of Gaza refugee camps, killed the Hamas negotiator, conducted two terror attacks against Lebanon, and now is talking about sending ground troops in across the border,… so… yea maybe things have changed
But im glad to have Sanders pushing for this though, I think it carries more weight coming from him.
Ugh that’s shameful, and super disappointing. But thanks, I hadn’t seen a poll on American Jews as recent as April so I’d bet those numbers haven’t changed much. Seems the Jews I’m around have a very different relationship with Israel than the majority.
I kinda hope it has changed since then, but probably not as much as I’d like.
I’ll hazard a guess that your circle is one mainly of highly educated city folk.
Quite independently of Religion, Education and one’s level of exposure to all sorts of people and complex social environments (which normally comes with big city life) seem to be the biggest deciding factors about people having or not “traditional values” (read: conservative) and the excessive and blind tribalism that makes them more likely to find excuses to support Genocide along ethnic lines “when our side does it”.
The irony is that Israel’s actions ultimately make Jews worldwide less safe.
The irony is that what they’re doing is holocaust.
Bernie is Jewish,
So is Jon Stewart.
We coulda had the OG and instead they chose HRC. SMH
Fun fact: Sanders consistently out-performed Hillary in head-to-head matchups against Trump.
The same establishment that derailed Sanders and propped Hillary up were the same ones trying to force Biden down our throats while castigating any dissent.*
*I know the progressives supported Biden until the end, but this was purely a strategic reason where if anything, their calls for Biden to step aside might’ve had the opposite effect.
Yes. 2016 was rock paper scissors for elections
How much did Bernie outperform Trump? Do you have links to hand?
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your analogy but how was Hillary better than Bernie?
She was in lockstep with the democratic party, whereas Bernie would have been a gremlin in the machine.
She was better in the eyes of the party (because she won the primary).
Thanks.
Fun fact: your guy lost, get over it
Whew, more salt than the dead sea.
So long as you learned from your mistake, little buddy :)
Say here’s another fun fact! More Sanders supporters would go on to support Hillary than did Hillary supporters go on to support Obama in 2008 when she lost the primaries.
Guess they didn’t get over it :(
Holy fuck that’s a level of disingenuous worthy of Trump himself. You’re comparing absolute numbers instead of percentages? Oldest bullshitting trick in the book.
You’re saying there were more Sanders supporters in 2016 than Hillary supporters in 2008? Yeah… That’s not exactly helping your argument.
But anyway: 15% of Hillary supporters voted for Mccain; 12% of Sanders supporters voted for Trump.
But don’t worry, I’ll be voting Harris.
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So did Hillary, wasn’t her turn I guess
Correct. And we’re over it.
IDK man, that comment you made wasn’t very high in terms of over it energy.
Hillary is gone, dude, we’re not constantly bringing up the glory days of what could have been.
but you did
I don’t often downvote comments, as I think that often that’s just a censorious way to say “I disagree”. But this comment so obviously adds nothing of value to the conversation, and indeed poisons it with petty grievance. So I feel totally justified in downvoting this comment.
Still not over it, I see
Excuse me, we had to go with the obvious choice that would win /s
I won a porterhouse from a steakhouse over Hilary losing.
I’d rather I hadn’t won. The bet was made in primary season, and that Hilary would get the nomination and lose the election. (There was a second part that said if Bernie won the nomination he’d be POTUS)
I’d eat a hundred well-done steaks from Denny’s topped with ketchup if it meant we didn’t have to deal with Trump again.
I’m in tinfoil hat territory, but it’s logical that Hillary was promised the Sec State position and superdelegate support for conceding to Obama and not making it a convention fight. It explains why the r’s only attacked her for 8 years outside Obama, they knew they didn’t have to attack any other potential candidate.
I don’t think that’s tinfoil hat at all. I mean it seems like a very logical explanation and the same thoughts I had when I was watching it happen.
I still remember when Hillary went to Obama before conceding and most were speculating it was going to be about a cabinet position and her running after Obama did.
Call your senators. Let them know you support restricting arms to israel
This is my senator!
Call him and tell him he’s awesome!
Both of mine will tell me to go pound sand.
Hello, can you be Bernie sanders please?
Schumer: lol, lmao even.
:(
Sad we are cursed with such an absolute piece of shit senator as schumer.
Doesn’t matter. The lovely Christians where I live would throw a fit because most of them want Israel to do even more damage.
literal death cult, they think killing enough Arabs and Israelis will bring the Apocalypse
Bernie is always on top of these things, and you have to respect him for that.
Polls have consistently found that the majority of the public supports an end to Israel’s genocide; a poll by the Institute for Global Affairs released this week found, for instance, that a majority of Americans think the U.S. should stop supporting Israel or make support contingent on Israeli officials’ agreement to a ceasefire deal. This includes nearly 80 percent of Democrats.
Even though 80% of Democrats are for this kind of bill watch, the majority of Congress vote against it, including the Democrats.
Goes to show Republicans (more so of course) and Democrats represent their donors more than the ppl who vote for them
We don’t even exist to them.
Good, force them to vote on it so we can see who supports genocide.
If he’s always on top of things, why is he doing this now and not sooner?
We love you Bernie!
I wish that Bernie was my real dad.
How do you know he isn’t?
Because, if he were, he would have stepped up and been a father. That’s how Bernie rolls.
Are they going to call him an “anti-semite” too?
Already have, will continue to.
Yes, they will.
Many comedians have firmly cemented the stereotype of the self-hating Jew. Not that the pro-Israel crowd cares about there being any truth to their accusations.
Good Job Mr Sanders. This took a really long time.
This is still an action of the “we want to influence Israel, but keep them as our ally” kind.
That doesn’t work. To make them listen, you must be willing to actually let them die. To drop them under the bus.
Same goes for Turkey, Russia, Pakistan.
Well, geopolitics make this a dangerous approach, but one should remember always than anything short of that readiness is not leverage.
So what they should be voting on is this AND dissolving the alliance. Of course one shouldn’t make threats of clearly hostile action while still allied, this bites long-term.
Its pretty fucked up how law seems to mean less and less nowdays. to think there even needs to be such vote about america sending weapons to country breaking international laws and doing terrorist shit.
when exactly did you feel like international law meant something, and what events made you feel so? genuinely would like to know
I thought it meant something, as they bothered to even pretend there is international law by having one in first place.
But it isn’t even international law, these are domestic laws forbidding sending weapons to nations that interfere with US humanitarian aid that have been flouted repeatedly and with the barest semblance of an excuse made. I can see them not paying attention to UN “laws” but this isnt the same thing.
you seem to misunderstand what a sovereign is, you see the US government, as being the only sovereign entity in the US can literally do whatever it wants. who’s going to stop them? a handful of militia men?
It’s wild to me that Americans are suddenly playing moral police on this. America sells weapons to just about every dictatorship or oppressive government, to this day. Including Saudis, the ones who blew up the trade center. It seems hypocritical how hard Sanders and others are going, demanding the stop of weapons sales to just Israel. Why not the rest of the world?
Have to start somewhere, our military industrial complex isn’t going to be stopped all at once. And the genociders are the most obvious evil at the moment.
SeCOnD aMEndMeNt!
It’s because the issue is popular/in the news a bunch
We’re not the moral police. There are many Americans who are diehard pro-genocide. There are others that are implicitly pro-genocide. They just don’t hang out on Lemmy. Also, our media is focused on Israel right now. Most Americans don’t know what our military is doing elsewhere in the world and the media doesn’t cover it. It’s hard for a populist politician to take a stand against our military industrial complex when the population doesn’t know what that Complex is doing. That industry fights back.
The resolutions are not likely to pass; even if they did pass the heavily pro-Israel Congress, they would likely be vetoed by President Joe Biden, who has been insistent on sending weapons to Israel with no strings attached.
Yeah, this is an absolute shame. He tried doing something similar shortly after the genocide had started, but everyone else currently in power just shut him down almost unanimously.
If politics and getting into power wasn’t 90% based on your wealth and connections, maybe US could have more people like Bernie trying to actually do good rather than trying to enrich or empower themselves.
AIPAC buying American politicians to ensure support for the war continues. Pretty fucked that a foreign nation state can buy US policies like this. Honestly, I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often, and more brazenly - it is “legal” after all.
America has the best politicians money can buy
If that were true, they would cost way more to buy.
the money is a token, you don’t have to pay tax on gifts and favors.
If they’re forced to vote on it, at least we’ll know which politicians have a spine and which have a padded wallet.
I’m glad he’s giving me a chance to have yet another demonstration of how shitty our country is. Can’t wait to see this fail miserably and anyone who votes for it lose their re-election.
He knows it won’t pass, the article says it too. That’s not the point.
Yes, I know it won’t pass, too. I just hate being constantly reminded that this country is ruled by violent idiots.
inb4 AIPAC makes a hit list of everyone who votes for this
Just imagine: we could’ve had this guy as president for the last 4-8 years…
File that one behind the what-if of a Gore Presidency. We keep missing the alternate timelines we should have taken. Here’s hoping we don’t screw up once again.
Imagine a back-to-back two term each Gore then Bernie presidency. We’d be living in a utopia, and I’m not even American
Israel-fetishizing politicians and media: Hey! That’s antisem- Oh wait… Shit.
Billions of dollars and weapons to Urkaine! Yes!
Billions of dollars and weapons to Israel! NO!!!
LOL
Demonstrating a complete lack of awareness: priceless.
One of these things is not like the others…
Nuance. Try it.
Ukraine is not doing genocide
