'No More Weapons to Support an Illegal War': Sanders Aims to Cut Off Israel Aid as Attacks Across Middle East Escalate

Sen. Bernie Sanders has introduced joint resolutions of disapproval for US arms sales to Israel following its escalation of attacks against Iran, Lebanon, and Palestine in recent days.

The resolutions Sanders presented on Thursday (I-Vt.) are cosponsored by Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and target a total of $658 million worth of weapons sales to Israel.

“Given the horrific destruction that Israel’s extremist government has wrought on Gaza, Iran, and Lebanon, the last thing in the world that American taxpayers need to do right now is to provide 22,000 new bombs to the Netanyahu government,” Sanders said. “No more weapons to support an illegal war.”

The weapons Sanders hopes to block were approved under emergency authority by the Trump administration earlier this month, allowing it to bypass congressional review.

According to Reuters, the package contained more than 12,000 thousand-pound bombs requested by Israel, which human rights groups say Israel has often used in densely populated areas, leading to large numbers of civilian casualties.

"Trump not only disregarded congressional authority to declare this war, he’s now bypassing Congress by invoking an emergency authority to supply additional bombs to this war, a crisis of his own making," Van Hollen said.

More than 3,000 people have been killed in US-Israeli attacks on Iran since February 28, according to a Wednesday report from the US-based Human Rights Activist News Agency, a humanitarian monitor for Iran.

More than 1,300 of those killed have been classified as civilians, including more than 200 children. Meanwhile, more than 3 million Iranians have been displaced from their homes, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.

In Lebanon, where Israel has launched a ground invasion, the death count is at nearly 1,000 according to the nation's health ministry, following attacks on densely populated areas in recent days. Forced evacuation orders from Israel have led more than a million people to flee from their homes.

Government-backed Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has also intensified since the outbreak of the war, according to Human Rights Watch. Since the beginning of March, there have been reports of settlers—sometimes in uniform—invading Palestinian communities, firing live ammunition, setting homes and cars on fire, and attacking families in their homes.

Sanders' resolutions of disapproval will be introduced under the Arms Export Control Act, which allows Congress to vote on halting proposed weapons transfers after being notified by the executive branch.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, controlled by Republicans, will have five days to consider the proposal. After that, Sanders and his cosponsors will have the opportunity to force a simple-majority floor vote to discharge it.

To actually block weapons sales, the resolution would need to pass both the House and the Senate, which is highly unlikely. Even if this happened, Trump could still veto it, which could only be overridden by a two-thirds vote in both houses.

While the vote itself is almost sure to fail, it has the opportunity to force members of Congress—particularly other Democrats—to go on the record about their support for Israel's actions in the Middle East, which many have continued to fund even while rhetorically opposing them.

“President Trump’s war of choice in Iran has been a catastrophe—jeopardizing our national security and the lives of our troops, killing and wounding thousands of innocent civilians, and causing havoc in the global economy," Welch said. “I support these joint resolutions to make sure that we do not send another 20,000 bombs to Israel that will result in further destruction in Iran and Lebanon. We must end this war, and we must not send these bombs.”