Highlights: Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday the United States should use aid to Israel as leverage to force its government to change its approach.
“If you want this money, you got to change your military strategy, Sanders (I-Vt.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union” when asked about a possible aid package for Israel to be considered by the Senate.
But the two senators who followed Sanders on that program were much more concerned about what Iran might be up to than what Israel is doing. Sanders condemned both Hamas (“an awful terrorist organization”) and the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (whom he hopes will be voted out), calling for a two-state solution to the intractable crisis but not specifying how to create a path forward without Hamas, Netanyahu or war.
While decrying empty slogans on both sides of the conflict, Sanders also declined to endorse or condemn Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D-Mich.) criticism of President Joe Biden — she accused him of supporting “genocide” — even as he said attention needed to be paid to the rhetoric of Republicans on the subject, citing former President Donald Trump.
“If anyone thinks that Trump is going to be better than Biden on this issue or any other issue, for that matter, I think they are sorely mistaken,” he said.
If countries gave their billions of dollars a year to humanitarian aid in Gaza instead of Israel's military this conflict would have ended decades ago…
People with nothing to lose, often act like people with nothing to lose.
So give them a basic quality of life they won't throw away.
Not with Hamas in charge. A lot of aid has flowed to Gaza. The problem is that the Hamas leaders take it for themselves or use it for weapons to launch against Israel. Very little actually reaches the Palestinians. Hamas's leaders are billionaires who live in luxury in Qatar while the Palestinians suffer.
I do agree with you in theory, but we need to ensure that aid actually reaches the Palestinian people and isn't just used to make some billionaires in another country even richer.
For one thing the paultry tens of millions of aid to Gaza/West Bank are audited and mostly goes towards roads and water.
For another, how many billionaires has US aid to Israel created? https://sgp.fas.org/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf
There are no audits of the monies Israel collects, and no penalty for even destroying the USS Liberty or stealing nuclear technology.
At the very least US needs to suspend the arms and money because of
If Israel wasn't getting "self defense aid" they likely wouldn't have prevented Gaza from holding elections for the last couple decades…
In the current situation, Israel benefits greatly from Hamas "being in charge" of Gaza, even tho they don't really have any political power.
Like, it's hard to blame Hamas when Israel controls all the infrastructure and borders, and even controls police and what areas ambulances can pass thru.
Neither Hamas nor Israel's current government could exist without the other.
They mainly benefit from being a hotspot in a politically charged region where America has interest.
https://theintercept.com/2023/10/27/secret-military-base-israel-gaza-site-512/
Most of the defense spending we send over as “aid” lines defense contractors pockets and allows the US military to have a much larger presence there.
Defense contractors, and most of the politicians voting to support the “aid” that is sent don’t give a shit about Israel’s cause. They want a strong, profitable position in the Middle East, and putting on a front that they are supporting this “free, democratic” ally is a ploy to increase and expand that profit and funding wherever possible
A lot of that could be fixed by making the aid material support like food, clothing, and medicine instead of money.
Israel blocks out a lot of humanitarian aid.
We gave a lot of aid to Hati, and it was all funneled off and none of it made it to the people. Don't see Gaza doing any better.