WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Bernie Sanders is preparing several resolutions that would stop more than $20 billion in U.S. 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 Israel-Hamas war.
In a letter to Senate colleagues on Wednesday, Sanders said the U.S. 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 highly unlikely.
“Much of this carnage in Gaza has been carried out with U.S.-provided military equipment,” Sanders, I-Vt., wrote.
As the war grinds toward a second year, and with the outcome of President Joe Biden’s efforts to broker a cease-fire deal and hostage release uncertain, the resolutions from Sanders would seek to reign in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assault on Gaza. The war has killed some 41,000 people in Gaza after the surprise Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack that killed about 1,200 people in Israel, and abducted 250 others, with militants still holding around 100 hostages.
While it’s doubtful the politically split Senate would pass the measures, the move is designed to send a message to the Netanyahu regime that its war effort is eroding the U.S.'s longtime bipartisan support for Israel. Sanders said he is working with other colleagues on the measures.
[…]
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.
I’m asking this in good faith.
Background: I am very leftist, card carrying DSA member, etc.
I remember being angry with Bernie for not immediately decrying the genocide in Gaza but it seems he’s completely flipped and is one of the few people in Congress speaking out against the US’s support for Israel.
I think it’s highly likely that he was influenced by fear of reprisal from AIPAC. He even mentions how AIPAC torpedoed two primaries for members of “the squad”.
Anyway, I like Bernie mostly. Is there still a genuine reason to throw him out like a baby with the bathwater?
I recently heard Obama talk about the “circular firing squad”, where perfect is the enemy of good and progressive forces tear each other down for the smallest ideological differences.
I’m hoping to hear from a few voices in lemmygrad and hexbear on their thoughts.
Edit:
Maybe I asked the wrong question. I hate Democrats, possibly more than I hate Republicans or Trump supporters. At least the Trump supporters I could write off as too ignorant, undereducated and manipulated to know better.
I joined the DSA, donated, did phone banking, went to events, and should be more involved but sometimes I can’t be.
What is the call to action? What can I do? If there were socialist candidates locally I would absolutely vote for them but at the presidential level I have no other option but to vote Democrat if we want to stand a chance at preserving democracy. For my own mental health I have to have some faith that there are some mainstream voices that have a prayer of a chance of pushing the Overton window to the left.
If this is just a thing where I must present two faces, one true one where I roast libs for being horrible and another fake one where I have to have a soft voice and try to gently move my lib friends towards sanity, then that makes sense too.
I just felt hopeful for the first time in years that the US could be slightly better than the dystopian shithole that it is.
Edit 2:
This is the forum for being true and telling it like it is. Even if I like some parts of Bernie that doesn’t mean that hating the rest of him isn’t true as well.
No you do have a choice. You don’t habe to vote for either genocide party. Unless you support genocide then you can’t go wrong either way.
There us no democracy in the US. There is only democracy for the ruling class. This system does not exist to serve or support us, it is only an instrument of the oppressors will.
We all should have known better than to take you seriously from the jump because only a total lib would say that. A lot of us gave you the benefit of the doubt, because we would rather explain our position to someone in good faith so that they can learn.
This too screams lib. This is not a left vision of people. We don’t have sympathy of fascist - but we don’t ascribe this to “those who disagree with me a stupid/crazy/manipulated” line of thinking.
Chuds and libs both engage with this system because they get something out of it. Not anything material, because that’s off the table. Libs think chuds are dumber than them that they “vote against their own interests.” What are you doing? Is genocide in your interest? No. What do you get then? You get to feel like you’re smarter and more morally correct than chuds. I don’t think you’re dumb because you do that, or uneducated, or even manipulated. I just think you’re wrong.
zionism is not a “small ideological difference” and Obama cut black wealth in half
Okay, this single sentence entirely changed how I was going to answer you. I need to ask: do you think that Obama is a good source on wisdom for actually making a change as big as the US ceasing to support a genocide? Like, you think he has a point here? This “perfect is the enemy of good” is used by Democrats to gather support for the genocide, which is the implicit “good” there. Like, I’d like to explain to you the futility of supporting the Democrats, but I feel like I need to start in a completely different place.
Do we have a playbook for working with the existing system?
If I were to take the sentiment here on lemmy it would seem that we wouldn’t want to work with them at all.
We know What is to be Done
True. I wish. I was hoping for some steps in between. 😓
Building power outside of lliberal democracy and electoral politics is the step in between. The idea of using entering into the dem party and taking it over as a vehicle of change has proven to be a dead end. Engaging with it and allowing people to think opportunists like AOC represent the left or socialism is detrimental at this point
He endorses a genocidal party, condemns Hamas and both sides everything. He’s a Zionist
I liked Bernie in 2016. I was reluctantly willing to give him a pass when he endorsed war criminal Hillary Clinton and then again war criminal Joe Biden. The pass was, “I’m disappointed in this grampa but he is an old liberal, I guess I shouldn’t have expected more from him. We’ll move on without him.”
But then he has refused to call the genocide a genocide and has steadfastly supported the genocidal Democratic Party. This isn’t a matter of throwing the baby out with the bathwater or a “circular firing squad”. Refusing to oppose genocide marks someone as a bad person. He’s not on the Left’s side, he’s just interested in whitewashing the US’s image.
This thing he’s doing now? Would have been great if he did it right away and denounced the Biden Administration for committing genocide. But now, and when he still refuses to use the g word, it’s way too little way too late. This is just an empty PR gesture.
And the thing is, principled people have to reject these empty gestures because they aren’t just pointless, they’re part of the Democratic Party’s long-standing pattern of supporting as awful and reactionary an atrocity as it can get away with, then softening its stance and pretending to kind of oppose it a little in order to trick the masses into trusting that this is progress, the Dems will save the day. I saw this with Iraq too and to paraphrase one of the war criminals behind that atrocity: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice – well, you won’t fool me again. If we don’t stay focused and condemn Democratic politicians then people will be mislead into thinking they can still achieve a better world by supporting the Democrats, who are totally going to move left.
It’s a lie. A ruse. The Left must oppose the fascist, imperialist, genocide-loving Democratic Party and strip away its support.
I could say more but I encourage you to just read the other comments on this page; I see good comments that are older than this one you wrote which can explain more.
Bernie did a lot of good. A lot of people were radicalized by watching him lose, and from learning why we cant get M4A or any other universal program to benefit working people in thr US.
He played his part. I’ll always have an appropriate level of good feeling for him because of that. He should go away now, because he’s doing more harm than good. Everyone affiliated with that movement went on to become complete opportunists. AOC is just a party hack. Nina Turner was doing a podcast paid for by Goldman Sachs before the corpse of the campaign was even cold. TYT are on an anti-trans grift. Brianna Joy Gray went on a force the vote grift. They all need to be forgotten by anyone serious about socialism.
That is not a circular firing squad. That isn’t purity politics. That is not the “the perfect” being the enemy of the good(libs attribute the phrase to Obama and Chuds attribute it to Reagan- either way its bullshit). You can’t build a movement with opportunists. You can’t build socialism with peoole who are not socialists. And public figures who people think are “socialists” but aren’t damage any real movements potential
In that exact wording it was popularised by Voltaire, but he only quoted old proverb and similar phrases were known long before. And i very much doubt any of them by “good” meant genocide.
I’ve always assumed it was neither of them that coined it lol. Thanks for that. I’ve always found it fascinating that chuds and libs will both use it but ascribe it to their respective team’s champion
The question is how you see this move.
One very politically useful spin would be to say that Bernard is a fundamentally humane congressperson who simply could not fight the entirety of the US estabilishment and AIPAC. After all he’s only one guy.
Or you might say that Sanders is simply the latest liberal who gets the spotlight of powerlessness. American politics the way it is disciplines the center left, liberal and left voters with a series of rotations. A rotating villain to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (Sinema, Manchin), a rotating hero to protest and take exception at the atrocities of Empire - but who is ultimately unable to change any policy because policies are not up for election.
Now I don’t believe the latter. At least not entirely. But I can see why someone might. Bernie was as bloodthirsty and pro Israel as anyone in Congress was expected to be. And the reason why I think that was the case was simply because he’s a politician and there’s literally no room for maneuver in the US political sphere when it comes to Israel.
So there’s no baby to throw out with the bathwater. It’s business as usual. The best case scenario here would be that some very timid factions in the US State are using a jewish congressman to signal that Israel is going too far. That’s the best you can expect from US foreign policy.