Senators Have a Chance to Halt Weapons Sales to Israel. Will They Take It?
Senators Have a Chance to Halt Weapons Sales to Israel. Will They Take It?
A joint resolution from Sen. Bernie Sanders would block arms sales to Israel. The challenge is convincing Democrats to act.
“The truth is that from a legal perspective, these resolutions are not complicated,” Sanders said during a press conference Tuesday, alongside Sens. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; Peter Welch, D-Vt.; and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. “They are cut and dry. The United States government is currently in violation of the law, and every member of the Senate who believes in the rule of law should vote for these resolutions.”
Despite aid groups reporting that Israel has continued to block humanitarian aid into Gaza, the White House overlooked the blown deadline last week, saying that it will continue to provide weapons to Israel. The decision stands in direct violation of existing U.S. law preventing the government from sending weapons to countries that block U.S.-backed humanitarian assistance.
With the Biden administration unwilling to act and legislation targeting pro-Palestinian nonprofits still advancing, pro-Palestinian advocates and their allies in Congress argue that passing the joint resolutions is likely the last real opportunity for Democrats to address the crisis in Gaza before Republicans take control in January.
Despite Democrats’ unwillingness to vote for conditioning military aid to Israel in the past, Araabi hopes that at least some of the lame-duck senators who won’t be returning in January will take this opportunity to cement an anti-genocide record.
Any Democrat that sits on this, instead of voting in line with Sanders and other voices of conscience, is supporting Trump at this point.
The party line that Trump will be worse for Palestine will no longer work. And I will be writing the Democrat from my state to let them know as much.
It's only because this Senate session is under Democratic control that this is being voted on in the first place. After the new year, and new session, it will be under Republican control, and something like this will never make it to the floor. So yeah, penalize those that will allow a vote versus those that won't. Same thought process that gives you President Trump.
Did you forget that democrats supported the attack on gaza?
Jfc have some self awareness and realize both sides are doing this bullshit.
Nah nah nah they’re saying they want to contact their democrat and let them know they need to vote with sanders who does not support the genocide
To be fair, an attack on Gaza was perfectly justified by Oct 7. The ongoing genocide was not.
I don't think they forgot that, my friend. Everyone knows it.
Democrats: “should we stop enabling genocide, now that we have absolutely no reason not to?
Gee!
Hmmmm
I dunno maybe?! :D probably not tho lol”
No way
Spoiler alert: no.
Well, let's see what Chuck Schumer probably thinks...
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary?cycle=All&ind=Q05&recipdetail=S
Number 7 on one of the few bipartisan lists in DC, nestled right between hos buddies Mitch McTurtle and Rafael "Ted" Cruz...
One of the few areas Biden is really head and shoulders above the rest though.
But Israel pays way too much money to both parties for either party's leaders to actually do what's best for America.
They're gonna do what's best for their campaign donations.
Edit:
Since some people may be surprised number 2 doesn't sound familiar, it's this guy:
One of the most corrupt Dems to ever be held accountable (technically the trial is still happening).
He was Hillary's co-campaign chair in 07 when she lost to Obama, and then Obama made him chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for some fucking reason. He was indicted shortly after in 2018, but charges were then dropped for 5 years till 2023 when he was committing crimes and accepting bribes from foreign government with a legitimately trumpian level of skill at hiding his crimes.
Like, at one point I remember him trying to argue that storing gold bars inside of the suits in his closet was a totally normal thing and not related to him googling how to smuggle gold bars into America while he was in Qatar and just accepted gold bars as bribe...
One of the few areas Biden is really head and shoulders above the rest though.
You get that result if you set the filter to "all" election cycles, but not if you set it to one of the more recent ones. The "all" figure is influenced by the fact that Biden is old and has been through many election cycles.
What's best for America is containing Iran.
So... Not sure what your going on about. It would be grossly negligent for a US president to break or alliance with Israel and let Iran run the middle east for the next century. You think human rights are under threat now, but you think we should let Iran run things. Seems either ignorant or hypocritical.
The actual conviction that a fucking shia state is going to create a hegemony without a belligerent Israel to counterbalance them is laughable. The only reason they get as much support as they do now is because everyone fucking hates us more. Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are plenty to counterbalance Iran when push comes to shove. Though I don't consider the Saudis much better. Pan Arabisim specifically discounts Persians and they will react to Iran being a significant threat, even if Turkey and Egypt play nice right now.
The only thing Israel will give the US is a causus beli to go to war with Iran, which is a war the US certainly does not have the conviction to win.
Do you want the short answer or the long answer?
Well just to prevent me from having to come back to answer
Short Answer: No
Long Answer: Lol, no
Probably not. US international relations is heavily driven by an amoral power calculus.
Israel is a major foil to Iran. Iran is an ally of Russia and China and a threat to US interests in the region. Barring an extreme amount of pressure from constituents, which has not reached that threshold as far as I can tell, most US politicians will tolerate almost any human rights abuse from Israel.
This is superficial. Neither Russia nor China are particularly antagonistic to Israel or the Gulf states, even if they see the US as a foe in their own region. Russia for example is very careful about balancing its relations with the Gulf, Israel and Iran. China, views Iran as a potential foothold to the region, but China actually benefits from the US presence, it is far more energy import dependent than the US and has no desire to fuel instability by helping Iran pursue offensive goals.
The actual reason that Iran and the USA are enemies has to do with the US' sectarian alignment with Sunni powers and Jewish nationalism, and more complicated reasons relating to politicial and religious struggles in the entire region that Iran happens to be one side of (i.e anti-monarchism, clericism, etc). And an institutional (and not necessarily rational) hatred of Iran in the US top brass due to its role in helping Iraqis and Lebanese fight American soldiers.
You cannot talk about this issue in terms of "Russia-China-Iran" balancing without mentioning the deeper and much more relevant issues that make US-Israel relationship exceptional on a globsl level: post-Holocaust philosemetism, anti-Islamism, anti-Arabism and (very underreported) Christian piety that actually motivates US-Israel policy. And the Israel lobby, which is so deeply engrained that Israel is treated more or less like the 51st state.
Politics goes far beyond amoral power calculus. You could have justified a ceasefire and even an embargo on Israeli arm transfers in accordance to amoral power calculus, but for Biden, Blinken and the rest, this is a moral question relating to a transcendent moral and religious cause, steeped in centuries of historical memory.
I have zero doubt that Joe Biden believes that by helping murderous racist Netanyahu slaughter and expel the people of Gaza, he has placed himself in the company of Cyrus the Great and other deliverers of Jews rather than Idi Amin and Radovan Karadzic. The GOP puts such things in explicitly religious terms and thus appear less rational or calculating. But it's not even that well-hidden in the case of Biden and Blinken given what we know of their careers and lives.
It's more like choosing to stand with Israel against Iran(ian proxies). The same reason they stood with Saudi-Arabia killing so, so many children in Yemen.
These top dog politicians don't care for religious or moral matters, that's just for show
That's a great analysis. Do you have any books or articles to share on the subject?
Israel is a close ally to Russia too, up until very recently. Netenyahus campaign was based more on his friendship with Putin than with Trump or Biden.
its just money, aipac either funds you or your opponent. these cowards just take the money and go on with their pimping for lobbyists while laughing at murdered children.
Their answers depend entirely on how much Lockheed Martin pays them.
This would also have to pass the House, which it would not. I agree with Bernie's statement and respect his choice to put the resolution forth on principle. I do not respect the article author or commentors who are either ignorant of basic U.S. civics, or choosing to be deliberately deceptive in order to place blame solely on Democrats.
who had the house and govt for last one year when pregnant women were shot, infants were bombed to pieces, kids burned alive in hospitals ? while we struggled to pay rent and my dad’s health related expenses almost tripled.
bernie is right to do this, it will bring out all the two faced filths whose hypocrisy gave the presidency to gop. it will be now be on us to weed out these crooks during primaries.
Their corporate paymasters in the arms industry say no.
If the logic is "selling these is causing war crimes" they'd have to defined the entire US military. The US regularly breaks the same laws.
Can you give an example from, say, the last decade? Just one example will do.
Not this decade, but during the battles of Fallujah we gave the civilians there 24 hours to evacuate, and then after that the official rules of engagement were pretty damn close to "everyone left is presumed to be an Al Qaeda militant." They were allowed to shoot people with phones or radios in their hands on sight. We also bombed the fuck out of that city, including with white phosphorous. We know WP was used because there was a recorded friendly fire incident with it.
And all of this was basically reprisal for the killings of those four Blackwater mercenaries.
lol
They definitely will not.