‘Prime Minister Netanyahu Has Created a Humanitarian Catastrophe’
Democrats turning backs on Israeli leader’s coming visit to Washington DC
Progressive Democrats increasingly are condemning the forthcoming visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu due to his brutal policies in Gaza.
Those who are saying that they won’t attend Netanyahu’s planned address to Congress next month when he visits Washington DC include one-time hopefuls for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sens Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts.
Netanyahu — overseeing Israel’s military operations in Gaza which have killed nearly 38,000 Palestinians — will address US lawmakers in Washington DC on July 24.
Israeli assault on the Palestinian enclave has generated global outrage. Although Israel began its current military operations following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, most of those killed by Israeli forces have been young children and women.
Warren, who ran for president in 2020, announced Tuesday that she will skip Netanyahu’s congressional address.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu has created a humanitarian catastrophe. He has also made clear that he does not support U.S. policy for a two-state solution that will let the people of Israel and the Palestinians develop their own nation, self-determination, live with dignity,” she said. “Look, we need a ceasefire. We need to get those hostages back. We need humanitarian relief, and we need to be giving both parties a big shove toward getting to the negotiating table and working out a peaceful solution.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) blasted Netanyahu’s claims that the United States should be supplying Israel with additional weapons and ammunition in its war against Gaza.
“Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu put out a video attacking the United States for not sending him bombs fast enough. No doubt, we will hear similar complaints when he addresses Congress on July 24,” Sanders said in a statement Tuesday. “Virtually everyone recognizes Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorism and respond to the horrific October 7th Hamas attack that killed 1,200 innocent Israelis and took hundreds of hostages. But the Israeli government did not and does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people. Yet that is exactly what has happened.
“Let’s be clear: the right wing, extremist Netanyahu government has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and injured nearly 85,000, sixty percent of whom are women, children, or elderly,” added Sanders, who twice ran for president. “After displacing nearly 1.8 million people from their homes, it has damaged or destroyed more than 60 percent of the housing stock in Gaza.
“It has devastated the civilian infrastructure, including water and sewage systems. Today, despite extraordinarily high temperatures, there is virtually no electricity in Gaza,” the Sanders statement said. “The health care system has been decimated, with 19 hospitals knocked out of service and more than 400 healthcare workers killed.”
Sanders called it “absurd” that Netanyahu should have been invited to address Congress at all.
“We should not be honoring people who use the starvation of children as a weapon of war. Instead, the United States should be withholding all offensive military aid to Israel and using our leverage to demand an end to this war, the unfettered flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, a stop to the killing of Palestinians in the West Bank, and initial steps towards a two-state solution,” his statement said.
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