Bernie Sanders pushing longshot bid to block $20B in US arms sales to Israel
Introducing resolution which is highly unlikely to pass, senator says US cannot be ‘complicit in this humanitarian disaster,’ seeks to halt sales of missile systems and tank rounds
WASHINGTON — US Senator Bernie Sanders is preparing several resolutions that would stop more than $20 billion in US arms sales to Israel, a longshot effort, but the most substantive pushback yet from Congress over the devastation in Gaza, ahead of the first-year anniversary of the Hamas attack that launched the ongoing war.
In a letter to Senate colleagues on Wednesday, Sanders said that the US cannot be “complicit in this humanitarian disaster.” The action would force an eventual vote to block the arms sales to Israel, though majority passage is incredibly unlikely.
“Much of this carnage in Gaza has been carried out with US-provided military equipment,” wrote Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont.
As the war grinds toward a second year, and with the outcome of President Joe Biden’s efforts to broker a ceasefire deal and hostage release uncertain, the resolutions from Sanders would seek to rein in the IDF’s ground offensive in Gaza.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 40,000 people have been killed in the strip or are presumed dead since the start of the war, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
On October 7, Hamas-led terrorists infiltrated southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and abducting 251 others, triggering the war.
In August, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken okayed the sale of fighter jets and other arms to Israel in deals worth over $20 billion.
In a statement at the time, the Pentagon said Blinken approved the possible sale of 50 F-15 jets and equipment worth nearly $19 billion. He also approved the possible sale of 33,000 tank shells and 50,000 mortar shells worth around $774 million and army vehicles worth $583 million, the Pentagon said.
While it is doubtful that the politically split Senate would pass the measures Sanders is pushing, the move is designed to send a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government that its war effort is eroding the US’s longtime bipartisan support for Israel. Sanders said he is working with other colleagues on the measures.
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said in an interview last month that, if elected, she would not change US President Joe Biden’s policy of arming Israel, rejecting calls to curb weapons shipments or end them completely, and most Senate Democrats are unlikely to seek to undermine her.
Sanders’s resolutions would halt sales of missile systems, tank rounds, and other weaponry, some of which has been singled out for causing among the most severe destruction in Gaza, and new fighter jets.
Israel maintains it makes great efforts to minimize harm to civilians during the war, but that civilian casualties are unavoidable in a war with a terror group hiding and operating among and underneath the civilian population in its vast network of tunnels.
Netanyahu was invited earlier this year to speak before Congress, delivering a combative address that put the divide in the US over his war effort on public display.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, initiated the invitation to Netanyahu, but several Democrats boycotted the speech, while some top Democratic leaders spoke critically of the tone and content of the address.
Under the Senate rules, once Sanders introduces the resolutions next week, he can force a vote almost instantly for consideration.
The measures are being proposed as a joint resolution of disapproval of the arms sales, which is a mechanism that allows congressional oversight of foreign affairs.
Sanders said he would have some backing for his proposal. But it is not expected to have support from a majority, 51 votes, in the Senate to pass.
In the House, blocking the Israeli arms sales would face even tougher odds, where Republicans hold the majority, and have largely sided with Netanyahu’s approach to the war with Hamas.
