The U.S. Senate voted down three bills by independent Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont that would have stopped the U.S. from selling arms to Israel worth about $20 billion.
A year after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, Sanders introduced three Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs) in late September. The Gaza Health Ministry says that Israel’s following military ground and air campaign in Gaza has killed over 43,000 people by some estimates.
A lot of damage has been done to Gaza. Officials from the United Nations have warned that famine is about to happen because more than 2 million Palestinians are suffering “extremely critical” levels of hunger.
During a passionate speech on the U.S. Senate floor, Sanders made a final plea to senators, urging them not to ignore the humanitarian crisis and the U.S.’s support for “mass starvation.”
Sanders’ S.J. Res. 111 bill was thrown out by a vote of 18 to 79 in the Senate on Wednesday night. Since Israel has a lot of support in the upper house, the motions were not expected to pass. However, they show that Democrats don’t agree with President Joe Biden’s view on the ongoing war.
