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Pete Buttigieg joins Warren in support of cutting military aid to Israel

Democratic presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have expressed the same sentiment.

By World Israel News Staff

On Friday, Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said that he would use America’s $3.8 billion military aid to Israel as leverage in political discussions.

“I think that the aid is leverage to guide Israel in the right direction,” Buttigieg told a student during a Q&A session at the University of Chicago. “If, for example, there is a follow-through on these threats of annexation, I’m committed to ensuring that the U.S. is not footing the bill for that.”

“I’m not going to commit now to all of the ways that leverage can and should be used,” he added

Buttigieg has been very critical towards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intentions of annexing Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.

“If Prime Minister Netanyahu makes good on his promise to annex West Bank settlements, he should know that a President Buttigieg would take steps to ensure that American taxpayers won’t help foot the bill,” Buttigieg said this past summer.

Buttigieg’s remarks echoed comments made by Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren on Sunday.

Asked at a town hall meeting in Iowa if she would make U.S. aid to the Jewish state conditional on Israel’s halting construction in Judea and Samaria, she said.

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“Right now, Netanyahu says that he is going to take Israel in a direction of increasing settlements. That does not move us toward a two-state solution. It is the official policy of the United States of America to support a two-state solution. And if Israel is moving in the opposite direction, everything’s on the table,” she said.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has also voiced his support of using U.S. aid to Israel as leverage.

During an interview with the Pod Save America podcast in July, Sanders was asked if he would ever consider using the U.S. military aid as leverage to get the Israeli government to act differently.

Sanders answered, “Absolutely.”