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.
It’s easy to rage against the machine on a moral pedestal. It’s harder to actually steer the machine in the right direction.
To be clear, I am supportive of putting things to a vote even if there’s no chance it succeeds. Get the votes on record. I think that’s an important archive that can be used later in election season to hold politicians accountable for their votes.
I like what Bernie and AOC are doing when they push for these kinds of votes.
But make no mistake. They can only do this from a position of being unable to effect any change. Under normal conditions, moves like this poison the well and make others on both sides less willing to work with you.
They have the luxury of grandstanding specifically because they have zero hope of garnering support.
Someone like a president can’t really do something like this without completely burning their political capital.
If only we had a president who is never going to hold office again and has nothing to lose right now… Damn our current pres is nothing like that
You realize his actions have a direct impact on Harris’ campaign… right?
You realise Biden’s current stance on Israel is unpopular by a vast majority of the Democratic voter base, right?
I couldn’t find much, but this poll seems to suggest the majority supports the US position on Israel. It’s surprisingly bipartisan.
Do you have another source maybe? This poll is from June, maybe you found something more recent?
That poll isn’t about any specific policy
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Nice finds!
That poll is about opinions on the US’s role, and says nothing about Israel.
It’s an absolutely bonkers result considering the US’s decades of destabilizing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets in other countries like Yemen and Syria, alliance/support of terrorist states like Saudi Arabia and Israel, and imperial/extractive attitude that has been the primary force destabilizing the region in my lifetime.
The idea that ANYONE can look at the middle east and have a positive view of America’s role is disgusting. America’s disastrous 21st century foreign policy is the primary reason that the entire world has become so destabilized. America is a terrorist state and the US military machine is the single biggest threat to human survival. Stopping the US at all costs is the most important thing that we can do to protect the biological experiment of the current ecosystem upon which we depend.
The only reason I am considering voting for Trump in the fall (compared to the handful of reasons why I am considering Harris) is that four more years of chaos may finally destroy the American War Machine and the disaster that is American foreign policy.
Four more years of Trump directly puts my life in danger, but if it leads to this country self-destructing I’m personally willing to make that sacrifice. Anything to cripple our criminal war machine. What good are our rights and liberties if the depend on a war machine that is willing to risk the habitability of our planet? If America collapses, with it will fall the major fuel of the arms race. If the leopards have to eat my face for my country to finally get put in its place, I’ll proudly try to pet the kitty.
Ideally, I want America to be a functional democracy that respects and promotes civil rights and liberties around the globe. I have never had the option to vote for such an America. In my lifetime I have never seen America take actions that imply that these are the values of our government. The options are to vote for the competent criminal who will directly and purposefully undermine the habitability of our planet, or the incompetent one who may cause more damage in the short-term due to his bumbling but may be better in the long run by removing America’s destructive influence on the world’s stage as we turn inwards to fight a civil war. Maybe a civil war will cause us to reassert what we claim are our values, and I’ll finally live in a country I can respect,
I’m pretty genuinely torn in this election, because I’m willing to sacrifice my personal safety for what I see as a net positive in the world in the long run. I’d rather be hopeful that we have a path to fix America. I’d rather be hopeful that America could be a country that promotes democracy and civil liberties. America as it stands is not a democracy, and we have no liberty. America is dead. Do we keep voting for the parasites, or do we vote for the incinerator to protect others?
But what if Trump and pals manage to stabilize their fascist state. You will never have another free election (Putin style instead of the propaganda of billionaires and theocrats). The whole world will be fucked and all on your coin toss.
It is for once too dangerous to leave to chance. You need to get Harris in, and Trump and the corrupt supreme justices in jail. THEN from the ground up build a new political party for the people and the planet.
The whole world is already fucked. Trump taking over will only fuck America faster and give the rest of the world a chance to not get fucked by America.
For your optimistic scenario, do we have the time for all of that? Does the middle east? Does the world? Is that even a possible outcome of all this? Or will it all just blow over and we’ll pretend like nothing happened (see four years of Biden) while Harris just doubles down on world annihilation? She’s promising to be a republican, I’m just taking her at her word.
Worked out really great in 2016, didn’t it? Absolutely brainless take with no basis in reality.
It’s a poll about the US role in the ME w.r.t. Israel, the rest of the poll’s questions were also about Israel, this was just the question that I figured best represents how people feel about Biden’s handling of it so far.
Are you sure about that? Last time Trump was president we got Russia gearing up for an invasion of Ukraine and China posturing regarding an invasion of Taiwan as well. Neither of these conflicts have been or would be beneficial to humanity as a whole. It’s destroyed the ecosystem in Ukraine for example.
And suppose Trump does turn isolationist instead of going to war with Iran like he’s been trying to do. Do you think the resulting power vacuum will lead American voters to believe that going isolationist was beneficial? We saw the opposite in 2020 happen, where people wanted the US to return to the world stage by electing Biden.
Have you considered that you might end up on the losing side? Republicans have always been war hawks. Them fully cementing their power through Trump could very well lead to an even more active US war machine. Trump won’t be around forever, he’s old and these days the target of assassination attempts.
Accelerationism has been tried in the past. It has never ended well. I urge you to really reflect on what it truly means if your envisioned scenario were to happen. I urge you to reflect on the many, many things that have to happen in order to end up somewhere better. And please, consider what happens if you’re wrong about what electing Trump will lead to.
I live in a country that’s been under the yolk of another whose population thought like you do, that maybe making things worse will make things better. It led to the worst environmental disaster we’ve ever known, caused the deaths of millions and led to the birth of the US war machine. The scars are still visible today.
I sympathize with you though. The US is in a shit place electorally speaking. Organizing for electoral reform is probably the best shot at fixing things, but that takes incredible time, effort and money to get through. I can see why that feels hopeless. But personally, I find it a more honorable cause. Endangering yourself and many others is in my opinion deeply irresponsible.
If Harris wins, I’m on the losing side, as is anyone who cares about civil liberties or democracy. Voting for Harris is voting to lose with complacency and voting for a position of despair that lasts four more years.
If Trump wins, I have high confidence that I won’t survive the next four years, but at least I’ll be going down fighting, and at least there will be some hope that civil liberties and democracy can be restored in the process. Some hope of rebooting America and to create a nation that values democracy. This is a position of hope. I believe in the American people. We are strong. I would rather see those interested in democracy and human rights unite against the tyrannical government instead of acquiescing to tyranny with a rainbow flag on it.
I want to live in a democracy that promotes liberty. Voting one way has no chance of delivering this, but will be comfortable for me as I watch the destruction the planet. Voting the other way opens up a possibility for democracy to win, even if it’s slim. This position of hope is what I am interested in. I see no path to democracy or liberty through the democratic party. Harris is only promising to double down on W’s policies of American destruction.
I also strongly detest these authoritarian regimes. America’s military spending is orders of magnitude larger than theirs, and America is driving the arms race. Reducing the American military will reduce the need for arms for these countries.
Ukraine has only ever been part of the West when the Ashkenazi Jewish glue acting as transliterators were present in the country. Post nazism and post zionism, the people who could keep Ukraine in the west were removed. As long as the Jews are distracted by their genocidal aspirations instead of going home to defend against Russia, Ukraine is a lost cause.
China and Russia both have disastrous policies in central Asia. Ukraine and Taiwan are small fish. Central Asia is the most sensitive ecological and cultural target of Chinese and Russian interference. The US does not care to protect this region because there is no oil. If America were actually providing a challenge to China and Russia where it matters, I might view things differently. I’d love to see a plan to save the Aral sea and central-asian ethnic populations such as the Uyghurs.
I see some contradictory statements here, perhaps you could clarify those for me.
You believe the Democrats to be unwilling to improve on social matters, be it both domestic and foreign, correct? They may state that they hold these beliefs, but you don’t expect them to make a meaningful change, which is why you don’t see a path to improvement under Harris. I hope I understood you correctly here.
At the same time however, you seem to believe that electing Trump will lead to a civil war. Who exactly do you expect to start said civil war here? It won’t be Trump as he’s already in power, and it won’t be the Democrats either because they don’t genuinely believe in liberty/democracy. If they won’t even vote for it, how can you expect them to fight for it? I’d argue electing Trump reduces the chance of a civil war, even according to your own logic. And even if a group other than the Democrats were to take up arms, that group would certainly be smaller than a Trump-led government backed by the US army. Trump would win in that case, and any hopes of progress would be dashed completely.
Any side with a shot at winning a civil war would have to be either the Democrats or the Republicans. Since the Democrats wouldn’t start a civil war (too spineless), the Republicans have to. And I’d posit to you that the only way they would do so is if Trump loses the election and contests it, riling up his base. We know that his base is radical enough for it (see Jan 6), and Trump is too much of a narcissist to refuse the chance. In this scenario, Biden/Harris would have to use the army to put down the insurrection, and the political momentum from that might give people a shot at improving things in the way you want. Arguably there’s historical precedent for this, with Lincoln having the momentum to ban slavery during the civil war.
You also seem to, and I quote “believe in the American people”. But that same people makes up the US army, makes up and and supports both political parties and also seems entirely complacent to keep voting for the same two sets of douchebags and not push for electoral reform in any meaningful way. In fact, you don’t even seem to think that the Democrats could be pressured into change, not even on the matter of Palestine. Either the Democrats are unwilling to change a position in exchange for power, or said pressure isn’t as big as you seem to think it is, and most Americans just don’t care enough (which would also put a pretty big dent in the whole “civil war”-plan.
Frankly, it seems to me that the accelerationist civil war strategy makes more sense when you elect Harris. But I’m not sure if it’s worth pursuing at all, since I can’t think of any historical precedent where this has worked out.
You’re a weird American and i say that as a compliment. I hope there are more like you.
Please chose the lesser evil in November.
Thank you, and I plan to.
As I said, I have a handful of strong cases to vote for Harris. I also had this one dissenting voice in me that was screaming to get expressed so I could look back at what I said and analyze it. Thanks for analyzing it with me. Doing this in public and with input from others helps me vet my ideas. I don’t have a social network anymore to talk about these things with. So much social cohesion broke down during the Trump years, and it hasn’t grown back well at all.
We don’t live in a unified country, and we need to be willing to say that we are broken so we can fix ourselves.
Yes and Harris complicity in continuing the genocide in Gaza, the ethnic cleansing in the Westbank and now the invasion of Lebanon will be the greatest risk for her election. But they would rather hand over the US to Trump on a silver plate, than to stop killing Arabs.
I think Russian propaganda will be the greatest threat to her campaign, actually