Knesset Speaker rips Sanders for ‘absurd’ claims about Gaza

“Every time he [Sanders] sees a Hamas rocket launched towards Israel, I see food and diapers and medicine flying in the air,” Edelstein said.

By World Israel News Staff

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein took to Twitter on Tuesday to criticize U.S. Senator Bernie Sander’s opinion of allocating part of the U.S. military aid given to Israel to Gaza for humanitarian purposes.

In the video tweet, Edelstein said that he met with E.U. officials and told them that it’s time to put these “absurd” claims regarding the economic situation in the Gaza Strip to rest.

“Every time he [Sanders] sees a Hamas rocket launched towards Israel, I see food and diapers and medicine flying in the air,” Edelstein said.

“When someone says there are no means, I don’t accept it,” he said. “They [Hamas] have all the necessary means but use the money earmarked for the public benefit in order to attack the State of Israel.”

On Monday at a J Street conference, Sanders suggested that that part of the $3.8 billion military aid America earmarks for Israel should go to Gaza instead for humanitarian purposes.

“My solution is, to Israel, if you want military aid you’re going to have to fundamentally change your relationship to the people of Gaza,” he said at J Street’s Q&A session. “I would say that some of the $3.8 billion should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza.”

“My proposal in terms of Israeli-Palestinian efforts is not a radical proposal. What is going on in Gaza right now, for example, is absolutely inhumane. It is unacceptable. It is unsustainable,” he added.

This is not the first time that Sanders has vowed to use America’s military aid to Israel as leverage in negotiations.

On August 13, Sanders told an activist affiliated with the anti-Israel group IfNotNow that he would use the financial aid given to the Jewish State as leverage to end the “racism” in Israel.

“Israel has every right to live in peace and security, but so do the Palestinian people. The United States government gives a whole lot of money to Israel, and I think we can leverage that money to end some of the racism that we have recently seen in Israel,” he said.