Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called on Congress on Tuesday to hold back more than $10 billion in military funding for Israel, warning it would be used to fund the Israeli government’s “grossly disproportionate” and “immoral” war in Gaza.
It was the latest round of criticism the liberal senator has directed at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to the killing of more than 1,200 Israeli civilians by Palestinian militants on Oct. 7.
“While we recognize that Hamas’ barbaric attack began this war, we must also recognize that Israel’s military response has been grossly disproportionate, immoral, and in violation of international law,” Sanders said in a statement released Tuesday.
Sanders said Americans “must understand that Israel’s war against the Palestinian people has been significantly waged with U.S. bombs, artillery shells, and other forms of weaponry.”
“And the results have been catastrophic,” he continued, pointing to reports from the Palestinian health ministry that more than 22,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes, two-thirds of them women and children.
Sanders noted that an estimated 57,000 Palestinian civilians have been wounded, and that 85 percent of the population of Gaza has been driven from their homes.
Sanders repeated his call for Congress to reject more than 10 billion in proposed military aid for Israel, which is part of an emergency foreign aid package that includes money for Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific region and border security.
He argued that money would amount to “unconditional military aid for the right-wing Netanyahu government to continue its brutal war against the Palestinian people.”
“Enough is enough. Congress must reject that funding,” he said.
Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, voted last month against a procedural motion to advance a $110 billion emergency foreign aid package that included money for Israel. Every other member of the Democratic caucus voted to proceed with the bill.
The Vermont senator’s statement comes after a similar rebuke on Dec. 4, which also called on Congress to not provide $10 billion to Israel, which he said would be used to fund the invasion of Gaza.
“I do not think we should be appropriating $10.1 billion for the right-wing, extremist Netanyahu government to continue its current military approach,” he said on the Senate floor last month. “What the Netanyahu government is doing is immoral, it is in violation of international law, and the United States should not be complicit in those actions.”
Sanders argued in a Dec. 12 letter to President Biden that Israel’s military response in Gaza has become “a mass atrocity,” and that it “would be irresponsible to provide an additional $10.1 billion in military aid” beyond defensive systems to protect Israeli civilians from missile and rocket attacks.
He warned that “Israel’s military campaign will be remembered among some of the darkest chapters of our modern history” and pointed out that more than 130 United Nations workers had died in the conflict as of mid-December.
Sanders cited media reports that, as of that date, the United States had provided more than 15,000 bombs and 57,000 155 mm artillery shells to Israel since Oct. 7, and that Israeli forces had dropped more than 22,000 American-supplied bombs on Gaza.
He said the destruction in Gaza has surpassed the “nightmarish thresholds” of destruction caused by American bombing in Dresden, Germany, and Japanese cities during World War II.