Sanders Files to Force First-Ever Vote in Congress on Blocking Weapons to Israel - eviltoast

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.

  • BertramDitore@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    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.

    • ALQ@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Fellow American Jew here. Very much agreed. Israel doesn’t represent us, even if it tries to say it does.

      • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        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.”

        • ALQ@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          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.

          • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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            2 months ago

            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.

            • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              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.

        • moody@lemmings.world
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          2 months ago

          “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.

        • katharta@lemmy.sdf.org
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          2 months ago

          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.

            • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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              2 months ago

              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

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        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.

        • orrk@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          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.

      • Match!!@pawb.social
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        2 months ago

        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

    • UmeU@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      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

    • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      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.

      • BertramDitore@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        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.

      • b161@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 months ago

        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.

        • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          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.

    • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.social
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      2 months ago

      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.

      • BertramDitore@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        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.

        • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          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”.