Why Is US Congress Silent on the Manmade Nightmare It Is Enabling in Gaza?

I want to say a few words about an issue that people all over the world are thinking about—are appalled by—but for some strange reason gets very little discussion here in the nation’s capital or in the halls of Congress. And that is the horrific humanitarian disaster that is unfolding in Gaza.

Thursday marks 68 days and counting since ANY humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza. For more than nine weeks, Israel has blocked all supplies: no food, no water, no medicine, and no fuel.

Hundreds of truckloads of lifesaving supplies are waiting to enter Gaza, sitting just across the border, but are denied entry by Israeli authorities.

Do we really want to spend billions of taxpayer dollars starving children in Gaza?

There is no ambiguity here: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist government talks openly about using humanitarian aid as a weapon. Defense Minister Israel Katz said, “Israel’s policy is clear: No humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers.”

Starving children to death as a weapon of war is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention, the Foreign Assistance Act, and basic human decency. Civilized people do not starve children to death.

What is going on in Gaza is a war crime, committed openly and in broad daylight, and continuing every single day.

There are 2.2 million people who live in Gaza. Today, these people are trapped. The borders are sealed. And Israel has pushed the population into an ever-smaller area.

With Israel having cut off all aid, what we are seeing now is a slow, brutal process of mass starvation and death by the denial of basic necessities. This is methodical, it is intentional, it is the stated policy of the Netanyahu government.

Without fuel, there is no ability to pump fresh water, leaving people increasingly desperate, unable to find clean water to drink, wash with, or cook properly. Disease is once again spreading in Gaza.

Most of the bakeries in Gaza have now shut down, having run out of fuel and flour. The few remaining community kitchens are also shutting down. Most people are now surviving on scarce canned goods, often a single can of beans or some lentils, shared between a family once a day.

The United Nations reports that more than 2 million people out of a population of 2.2 million face severe food shortages.

The starvation hits children hardest. At least 65,000 children now show symptoms of malnutrition, and dozens have already starved to death.

Malnutrition rates increased 80% in March, the last month for which data is available, after Netanyahu began the siege, but the situation has severely deteriorated since then.

UNICEF reported Wednesday that “the situation is getting worse every day,” and that they are treating about 10,000 children for severe malnutrition.

Without adequate nutrition or access to clean water, many children will die of easily preventable diseases, killed by something as simple as diarrhea.

For the tens of thousands of injured people in Gaza, particularly the countless burn victims from Israeli bombing, their wounds cannot heal without adequate food and clean water. Left to fester, infections will kill many who should have survived.

With no infant formula, and with malnourished mothers unable to breastfeed, many infants are also at severe risk of death. Those that survive will bear the scars of their suffering for the rest of their lives.

And with little medicine available, easily treatable illnesses and chronic diseases like diabetes or heart disease can be a death sentence in Gaza.

What is going on there is not some terrible earthquake, it is not a hurricane, it is not a storm. What is going on in Gaza today is a manmade nightmare. And nothing can justify this.

What is happening in Gaza will be a permanent stain on the world’s collective conscience. History will never forget that we allowed this to happen and, for us here in the United States, that we, in fact, enabled this atrocity.

There is no doubt that Hamas, a terrorist organization, began this terrible war with its barbaric October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages.

The International Criminal Court was right to indict Yahya Sinwar and other leaders of Hamas as war criminals for those atrocities.

Clearly, Israel had the right to defend itself against Hamas.

But Netanyahu’s extremist government has not just waged war against Hamas. Instead, they have waged an all-out barbaric war of annihilation against the Palestinian people.

They have intentionally made life unlivable in Gaza.

Israel, up to now, has killed more than 52,000 people and injured more than 118,000—60% of whom are women, children, and the elderly. More than 15,000 children have been killed.

Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment has damaged or destroyed two-thirds of all structures in Gaza, including 92% of the housing units. Most of the population now is living in tents or other makeshift structures.

The healthcare system in Gaza has been essentially destroyed. Most of the territory’s hospitals and primary healthcare facilities have been bombed.

Gaza’s civilian infrastructure has been totally devastated, including almost 90% of water and sanitation facilities. Most of the roads have been destroyed.

Gaza’s education system has been obliterated. Hundreds of schools have been bombed, as has every single one of Gaza’s 12 universities.

And there has been no electricity in Gaza for 18 months.

Given this reality, nobody should have any doubts that Netanyahu is a war criminal. Just like his counterparts in Hamas, he has a massive amount of innocent blood on his hands.

And now Netanyahu and his extremist ministers have a new plan: to indefinitely reoccupy all of Gaza, flatten the few buildings that are still standing, and force the entire population of 2.2 million people into a single tiny area, where hired U.S. security contractors will distribute rations to the survivors.

Israeli officials are quite open about the goal here: to force Palestinians to leave for other countries “in line with President [Donald] Trump’s vision for Gaza,” as one Israeli official said this week.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said this week that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed,” and that its population will “leave in great numbers.”

For many in Netanyahu’s extremist government, this has been the plan all along: It’s called ethnic cleansing.

This would be a terrible tragedy, no matter where or why it was happening. But what makes this tragedy so much worse for us in America is that it is our government, the United States government, that is absolutely complicit in creating and sustaining this humanitarian disaster.

Last year alone, the United States provided $18 billion in military aid to Israel. This year, the Trump administration has approved $12 billion more in bombs and weapons.

And for months, Trump has offered blanket support for Netanyahu. More than that, he has repeatedly said that the United States will actually take over Gaza after the war, that the Palestinians will be pushed out, and that the U.S. will redevelop it into what Trump calls “the Riviera of the Middle East,” a playground for billionaires.

This war has killed or injured more than 170,000 people in Gaza. It has cost American taxpayers well over $20 billion in the last year. And right now, as we speak, thousands of children are starving to death. And the U.S. president is actively encouraging the ethnic cleansing of over 2 million people.

Given that reality, one might think that there would be a vigorous discussion right here in the Senate: Do we really want to spend billions of taxpayer dollars starving children in Gaza? You tell me why spending billions of dollars to support Netanyahu’s war and starving children in Gaza is a good idea. I’d love to hear it.

But we are not having that debate. And let me suggest to you why I think we are not having that debate.

That is because we have a corrupt campaign finance system that allows the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to set the agenda here in Washington.

In the last election cycle, AIPAC’s PAC and Super PAC spent nearly $127 million combined.

And the fact is that, if you are a member of Congress and you vote against Netanyahu’s war in Gaza, AIPAC is there to punish you with millions of dollars in advertisements to see that you’re defeated.

One might think that in a democracy there would be a vigorous debate on an issue of such consequence. But because of our corrupt campaign finance system, people are literally afraid to stand up. If they do, suddenly you will have all kinds of ads coming in to your district to defeat you.

Sadly, I must confess, that this political corruption works. Many of my colleagues will privately express their horror at Netanyahu’s war crimes, but will do or say very little publicly about it.

History will not forgive our complicity in this nightmare. The time is long overdue for us to end our support for Netanyahu’s destruction of the Palestinian people. We must not put another nickel into Netanyahu’s war machine. We must demand an immediate cease-fire, a surge in humanitarian aid, the release of the hostages, and the rebuilding of Gaza—not for billionaires to enjoy their Riviera there—but rebuilding Gaza for the Palestinian people.