Sanders Urges Colleagues to Vote "NO" on Sending $14 Billion to Fund Netanyahu's Horrific War
Floor Speech
"M. President,
One of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history is unfolding before our eyes. Today. Right now. And we, as the government of the United States of America, are complicit.
It's been four months since Hamas' terrorist attack started this war, and what we in Congress do right now, could well determine whether tens of thousands of people live or die.
Already, the human cost of this conflict is staggering. 1,200 innocent Israelis were killed in the initial terrorist attack, and more than 100 are still being held hostage.
As I have said many times, Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas' terrorism, but it does not have the right to obliterate an entire people.
As of today, Israel's response has killed more than 27,000 Palestinians and injured more than 67,000 -- two-thirds of whom are women and children.
1.7 million people have been driven from their homes and, unbelievably, some 70 percent of the housing units in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. This is an unheard-of level of destruction. Nearly 80 percent of the population has been displaced, and they have no idea of where to go, or whether or not they will ever return to their homes. Many of these men, women, and children have been displaced multiple times.
M. President, most of the infrastructure has been destroyed. Very few water wells or bakeries are still functioning. The electricity has been out since the beginning of the war. Sewage is running in the streets. Cell phone service is spotty or nonexistent.
Most of the healthcare facilities in Gaza are not operational. Many facilities have been damaged in airstrikes, and numerous healthcare workers have been killed. The facilities that are operational lack the basic medical supplies needed to save lives and treat their patients.
And, M. President, as horrible as all of this is, let me tell you what is even worse. As a result of Israeli bombing and restrictions on aid entering Gaza, only a tiny fraction of the food, water, medicine, and fuel that is needed can get into Gaza. Even then, very little of that aid can reach beyond the immediate area around the Rafah crossing from Egypt.
And let's be clear about what this means.
It means that today, hundreds of thousands of children are starving and lack clean drinking water. The UN says the entire population is at imminent risk of famine, and 378,000 people are starving right now. According to the UN, one in 10 children under the age five in Gaza is now acutely malnourished. And when malnutrition affects young children, it often means permanent physical and cognitive damage that will impact the rest of their lives.
M. President, if nothing changes, we will soon have hundreds of thousands of children literally starving to death before our very eyes.
And that situation could get even worse in the immediate future.
Roughly 1.4 million people -- more than half of the population of Gaza -- are now squeezed into the Rafah area, right up against the Egyptian border.
Rafah was a town of just 250,000 before the war. It's a very small area, roughly ten miles by four miles. Most of the people there are now packed into crowded UN shelters or sleeping out in tents. It's a daily struggle for them to find food or water.
Yet Prime Minister Netanyahu, the leader of Israel's extreme right-wing government, says that Israel will soon launch a major ground offensive against Rafah. He will soon be forcing hundreds of thousands of desperate people to evacuate yet again. In other words, exhausted, traumatized, and hungry families will be driven onto the road, with no plan for where they will go, how they will receive essential supplies, or for their physical safety.
M. President, I cannot find words to describe how horrific this situation could become.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly said that the goal of Israel's military efforts is "total victory." Yet asked recently what "total victory" would look like, he responded, chillingly, by saying that it is like smashing a glass "into small pieces, and then you continue to smash it into even smaller pieces and you continue hitting them."
And the question is: how many more children and innocent people will be smashed in the process?
M. President, it is quite clear that, beyond total destruction of Gaza, Netanyahu has no plan.
Yesterday, President Biden acknowledged the severity of this crisis. He said that Israel's response in Gaza "has been over the top" and added that "there are a lot of innocent people who are starving. There are a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying. And it's got to stop."
He is absolutely right. It does have to stop.
President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken have been trying to negotiate an agreement where Israel pauses its military operation, while Hamas releases the remaining hostages. We all hope this deal comes together. We all want the hostages freed and the killing stopped.
But Netanyahu is resisting this proposal. In large part, this is because he is politically weak at home. Most Israelis rightly blame him for creating this crisis. In my view, he is trying to prolong the war to avoid facing accountability for his actions.
M. President, Netanyahu didn't even wait for Secretary Blinken to leave the region this week before he publicly dismissed the hostage deal as "delusional" and brushed aside U.S. concerns about expanding the ground offensive to southern Gaza. The Associated Press called this a "virtual slap in the face" to Blinken and the United States. And they're right.
Unbelievably, despite all of this, the U.S. Congress is preparing to send another $14 billion in military aid to Netanyahu's right-wing government. $10 billion of this money is totally unrestricted and will allow Netanyahu to buy more of the bombs he has used to flatten Gaza and kill tens of thousands of innocent people.
This is really quite unbelievable -- does the United States Congress really want to provide more military aid to Netanyahu so that he can annihilate thousands and thousands more innocent men, women, and children?
Do we really want to reward Netanyahu, even while he ignores virtually everything the President of the United States is asking him to do?
Do we want to give even more support to the leader of the most right-wing government in Israel's history, a man who has dedicated his political career to killing the prospects of a two-state solution?
It's hard to believe, but that is exactly what this bill will do.
And what's even harder to understand is that, in the midst of this horrendous humanitarian crisis, the legislation before us actually contains a prohibition on funding for UNRWA, the largest UN agency operating in Gaza and the backbone of the humanitarian aid operation. Israel's allegations against the agency are serious, and they are being investigated seriously. But you don't starve two million people because of the alleged actions of twelve UNRWA employees.
M. President, the whole world is watching. Netanyahu is starving hundreds of thousands of children. We cannot be complicit in this atrocity.
As long as this bill contains money to fund Netanyahu's cruel war, I will do everything I can to oppose it. I urge my colleagues to do the same."
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