Bernie Sanders Tears Into Netanyahu Ahead of Congressional Address: ‘He Is Beholden to Extreme Racists in Israel’

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) tore into Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday and accused him of being “beholden to extreme racists” ahead of his upcoming address to Congress.

After Netanyahu made remarks criticizing the United States for not providing Israel with additional weapons to use in its assault on Gaza, Sanders released a statement calling on President Joe Biden to cease all offensive military aid to Israel:

Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu put out a video attacking the United States for not sending him bombs fast enough. No doubt, we will hear similar complaints when he addresses Congress on July 24.

Virtually everyone recognizes Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorism and respond to the horrific October 7th Hamas attack that killed 1,200 innocent Israelis and took hundreds of hostages. But the Israeli government did not and does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people. Yet that is exactly what has happened.

Let’s be clear: the right wing, extremist Netanyahu government has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and injured nearly 85,000, sixty percent of whom are women, children, or elderly.

Noting that Israel had displaced “nearly 1.8 million people from their homes,” destroyed vital infrastructure including water and sewage, bombed 19 hospitals “out of service,” and subjected “more than 8,000 children under the age of five” to “acute malnutrition,” Sanders continued:

Given all of this, it is easy to understand why Netanyahu is credibly accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court and the United Nations. He is beholden to extreme racists in Israel and has devoted his career to undermining the prospects for a two-state solution and lasting peace.

Sanders went on to protest Netanyahu’s upcoming address to Congress, calling his bipartisan invitation “absurd” and declaring, “We should not be honoring people who use the starvation of children as a weapon of war.”

The senator concluded, “Instead, the United States should be withholding all offensive military aid to Israel and using our leverage to demand an end to this war, the unfettered flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, a stop to the killing of Palestinians in the West Bank, and initial steps towards a two-state solution.”

Sanders has repeatedly criticized Biden’s “totally absurd” decision to support Israel with weaponry in its ongoing “slaughter of the Palestinian people,” and in May, Sanders told CNN he would boycott Netanyahu’s address to Congress in protest.

In April, Sanders declared , “I think our policy has got to be very clear. Not another nickel for Netanyahu’s right-wing extremist government.”