On Wednesday, Sanders introduced six resolutions blocking six sales of different weapons contained within the $20 billion weapons deal announced by the Biden administration in August. The sales include many of the types of weapons that Israel has used in its relentless campaign of extermination in Gaza over the past year.

“Sending more weapons is not only immoral, it is also illegal. The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act lay out clear requirements for the use of American weaponry – Israel has egregiously violated those rules,” said Sanders. “There is a mountain of documentary evidence demonstrating that these weapons are being used in violation of U.S. and international law.”

This will be the first time in history that Congress has ever voted on legislation to block a weapons sale to Israel, as the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project pointed out. This is despite the U.S. having sent Israel over $250 billion in military assistance in recent decades, according to analyst Stephen Semler, as Israel has carried out ethnic cleansings and massacres across Palestine and in Lebanon.

The resolutions are not likely to pass; even if they did pass the heavily pro-Israel Congress, they would likely be vetoed by President Joe Biden, who has been insistent on sending weapons to Israel with no strings attached.

However, Sanders’s move is in line with public opinion. Polls have consistently found that the majority of the public supports an end to Israel’s genocide; a poll by the Institute for Global Affairs released this week found, for instance, that a majority of Americans think the U.S. should stop supporting Israel or make support contingent on Israeli officials’ agreement to a ceasefire deal. This includes nearly 80 percent of Democrats.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    We could be at the end of Bernie’s second term right now if Hillary hadn’t staged a hostile takeover of the DNC during the primary.

    trump would have been nothing more than a dated joke from TV reruns, Covid would have been handled appropriately, pretty much everyone would be measurably better off.

    Dont forget what the moderate branch stole from us, they’re still the ones running shit. That’s not just an expression, literally the same people from back then are still running the DNC and in the current administration, they’re literally still the ones running shit.

    • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      Part of the recipe for far right fascists to rise to power requires liberals’ “compromise.”

      • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Liberals are just pro-Oligarchy - they think Money should be above the one power which is led by elected leaders: the State - which is against Democracy just like the Fascists, just with a different and more subtle mechanism determining those whose power is above the power of the vote.

        They’re just a different kind of Far-Right from the Fascists, which is why it is so easy for them to support Zionists - which are ethno-Fascists, the same sub-type of Fascism as the Nazis - even while they commit a Genocide.

        People with even the slightest shred of Equalitarian values wouldn’t ever support those commiting ethnic cleansing.

    • mlg@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      No but vote blue no matter who amirite.

      No possible way another lunatic will replace Trump by next election, he’s just a one of a kind republican candidate totally nor representative of a systemic problem.

    • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The reason HRC won the primary is that she got 17 million votes and Sanders only got 13 million.

      • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        And how was it that Hillary and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz ensured this was the voting outcome?

        • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Hillary won her voters by campaigning. That is how you win voters.

          Debbie Wasserman-Schultz had nothing to do with it, because she doesn’t have a mind control device.

            • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Money is a necessary part of politics. Which means that if you want to win, you need donors. And if your opponent wins over more donors than you do, that’s on you. Do you think it’s unfair that people are way more willing to donate to Harris than Trump?

                • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  No, that’s not what I said.

                  Having more money provides an advantage, but so do many other things like media endorsements, union endorsements, incumbency, etc.

                  Plenty of candidates who outspent their opponents went on to lose their elections.