The senator will introduce next week Joint Resolutions of Disapproval in Congress to block future arms sales to Israel.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, called Israel out Wednesday for allegedly breaking international humanitarian law as it wars against the terrorists attacking the country.
The two leading anti-Israel legislators focused on two separate fronts.
Sanders cited on the ongoing battle against the Hamas terrorists who began the war on October 7 by invading Israel, murdering 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage, with 101, both alive and dead, still held in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
While saying in his Senate speech that Israel “had an absolute right to respond to the Hamas attack,” he accused Jerusalem of “bombing indiscriminately” and cited Hamas statistics that “more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed.”
Hamas does not differentiate between combatants and non-combatants’ deaths. The IDF says over a third of those dead are terrorists.
Sanders ignored the fact that a two-to-one civilian to soldier death rate in war is an incredibly low number that is acceptable to every army.
Calling Congress’ approval of $10 billion in military aid to Israel an act of “U.S. complicity” in breaking international law as it helps Jerusalem “buy more of the bombs and weapons they are using to wage war against the Palestinian people,” he announced that next week he would introduce Joint Resolutions of Disapproval to block $20 billion in additional sales that the Biden administration approved last month.
If a foreign arms sale is deemed a violation of human rights provisions in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and Arms Export Control Act, these Resolutions are the only way Congress has to block them.
The vote would have to pass both Houses and not be vetoed by the president, which is currently considered a highly unlikely scenario.
Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez accused Israel of “unequivocally” violating international law after thousands of beepers and walkie talkies owned by Hezbollah members exploded in Lebanon in two separate incidents Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Israel’s pager attack in Lebanon detonated thousands of handheld devices across of a slew of public spaces, seriously injuring and killing innocent civilians,” the progressive “Squad” member wrote on X. “This attack clearly and unequivocally violates international humanitarian law and undermines U.S. efforts to prevent a wider conflict.”
Several thousand terrorists were injured, hundreds of them seriously, and at least two dozen were killed by the devices which were on their person.
According to initial Lebanese reports, two young children are among the dead in the attacks for which Jerusalem has not admitted responsibility.
Ocasio-Cortez demanded “a full accounting of the attack, including an answer from the State Department as to whether any US assistance went into the development or deployment of this technology.”
The U.S. immediately denied having any connection to the sophisticated, remote-controlled strike on the Iranian terror proxy.