Bernie Sanders Condemns 'Deeply Complicit' Congress Before Vote On Weapons Sales To Israel

The senator delivered a fiery speech before his fellow colleagues voted against his resolutions that would have blocked $8.8 billion in arms sales to Israel.

In a fiery speech, Sen. Bernie Sanders tore into Congress on Thursday over the federal government’s military support for Israel — just before the Senate overwhelmingly voted against the Vermont Independent’s resolutions to block billions of dollars in U.S. weapons sales to the country accused of war crimes.

Sanders had introduced multiple Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRD) in the Senate to block more than $8.8 billion worth of arms transfers to the Israeli military. Israel has largely been using them to wipe out buildings and infrastructure in Gaza and, per Gaza health officials, kill more than 50,000 Palestinians over the past year and a half.

“What we are talking about is a mass atrocity,” Sanders said on the Senate floor. “And what makes it even worse — and why I am here today, and why I have introduced the resolutions that we will soon be voting on — is that we as Americans are deeply complicit in all that is happening in Gaza.”

The Trump administration has essentially bypassed the standard procedure for approving weapons packages to foreign countries, formally notifying Congress of the sales before allowing each chamber’s respective foreign affairs committees to exercise oversight and review the transfer. The packages include tens of thousands of 2,000-pound bombs, which have a lethal radius of about 89 football fields.

“Ain’t a whole lot left,” Sanders said, pointing to a photo of Gaza’s infrastructure reduced to rubble. “I don’t know why they need any more bombs, they’ve basically destroyed the entire area. Nothing much left to be destroyed.”