DEMOCRATIC socialist senator Bernie Sanders, one of the lone critics on Capitol Hill of Israel’s carnage in Gaza, is set to introduce a joint resolution this week to block the ongoing billions of US dollars in arms sales to Israel.
 
“Much of the carnage in Gaza has been carried out with US-provided military equipment,” said Sanders. “That’s why I will introduce a resolution to block this $20 billion arms sale to Israel.”
 
In a 25-minute speech last Wednesday on the US Senate floor, Sanders, who is Jewish, demanded that “US complicity in this horrific war must end.”
 
Sanders noted that “US-provided weapons have caused massive death and suffering to innocent people in Gaza. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye.”
 
Sanders supports Israel as a state but not the current regime, which he labelled “extremist.”
 
On the Senate floor, Sanders repeated his view that “Israel had an absolute right to respond to the Hamas attack” but noted that Netanyahu’s government “has not simply waged war against Hamas. It has waged all-out war against the Palestinian people.” This, said Sanders, is something to which “we cannot continue to turn a blind eye.”
 
Sanders, along with other Senate colleagues, is planning to introduce a number of Joint Resolutions of Disapproval but does not expect them to pass despite a Democratic majority in the Senate. Opposition will come from a number of ardent Israel supporters within the Democratic Party, likely including the powerful Senate Majority leader, Chuck Schumer.
 
Sanders is an independent who caucuses with Democrats but is often a lone voice on progressive social and political issues. He ran twice to be selected as the Democratic presidential candidate but was never chosen as the party nominee.
 
The resolutions offered by Sanders and his allies aim to end the sales of fighter jets, missile systems, tank rounds and other weaponry to Israel. There has been a temporary halt on some arms sales, but a complete blockade is now needed, urged Sanders.
 
That’s because US President Joe Biden’s efforts at brokering a ceasefire have effectively been scoffed at by the Netanyahu government, ending repeatedly in failure.
 
“Every time a deal appears close, Netanyahu moves the goalposts, introducing new demands and torpedoing the deal,” Sanders said. “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 [against] his policies.”
 
Even should Sanders’s resolutions somehow pass the Senate, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, whose extreme right leader, Mike Johnson, issued the invitation to Netanyahu to speak there in July, would never support such measures.
 
Johnson has routinely defended Israel, claiming the country “is just doing its very best to prevent civilian casualties,” an assertion at odds with the facts.
 
The urgency is clear, Sanders told the Senate. “Netanyahu’s policies have trampled on international law, made life unlivable in Gaza and created one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history,” he said.
 
Linda Pentz Gunter is a writer based in Takoma Park, Maryland.