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bernie sanders
From Lebanon to Iran, Says Sanders, US Must End Complicity in 'Netanyahu's Wars'
"In less than two weeks, Israel has killed 570 people and displaced 750,000—over 10% of the entire country," the senator said of Lebanon. "Residential buildings are being bombed with no warning."
Mar 11, 2026
Just a day after tearing into US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for "unraveling international law, the Geneva Conventions, and the legitimacy of the United Nations" with their illegal war on Iran, Sen. Bernie Sanders stressed that "it's not just Iran."
"It's Lebanon," Sanders (I-Vt.) said on social media Wednesday. Since Trump and Netanyahu began bombing Iran a dozen days ago, Israel has also ramped up attacks against its northern neighbor—claiming to target the Lebanese political and paramilitary group Hezbollah—despite a November 2024 ceasefire deal.
That agreement to protect the Lebanese people was struck just over a year into Israel's retaliation for the October 2023 Hamas-led attack, which has also left the Gaza Strip in ruins. Despite the Lebanon truce, and another for Gaza reached this past October, Israeli forces have continued to slaughter civilians in both places.
In Lebanon, Sanders noted Wednesday, "in less than two weeks, Israel has killed 570 people and displaced 750,000—over 10% of the entire country. Residential buildings are being bombed with no warning."
"The US cannot continue to be complicit in Netanyahu's wars," declared the senator. His comments came after the White House tried to walk back Secretary of State Marco Rubio's suggestion last week that Trump followed the Israeli prime minister's lead on Iran.
Sanders has also criticized and even attempted to curb US complicity in Netanyahu's genocidal assault on Palestinians in Gaza—under the Biden and Trump administrations—by forcing unsuccessful votes to cut off some weapons to Israel.
The Israeli government has used the operation against Iran—which experts argue violates the US Constitution and UN Charter—to again cut off necessary humanitarian aid to Gaza, claiming last week that "the existing stock is expected to suffice for an extended period."
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, called the move "a new chokehold on Gaza," adding that "after more than two years of unspeakable suffering and a spreading man-made famine, people still lack the most basic supplies, despite increases in aid since the ceasefire.
As for Lebanon, Axios reported Monday that "the Lebanese government proposed direct negotiations with Israel—through the Trump administration—aimed at ending the war and reaching a peace agreement."
However, the Financial Times reported Tuesday that "Israel has rejected diplomatic overtures by Lebanon," with one unnamed source saying that the Lebanese "are ready to talk to Israel, but under the condition of a cessation of fire. Not a ceasefire, but a cessation... so talks can get going in Cyprus."
"Israel has so far refused and says it will only negotiate 'under fire,'" according to that unnamed source.
Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, made US support for Israel's bombing of Lebanon clear in his Wednesday remarks to the UN Security Council.
"The United States condemns the attacks that Hezbollah, a long-time proxy of the Iranian regime, has launched against Israel. Hezbollah has yet again made it clear that it does not represent nor does it defend the people of Lebanon. It defends the interests of the Iranian regime," Waltz said, stressing Israel's "right to defend itself."
Waltz also welcomed the Lebanese Council of Ministers' recent decision "to immediately prohibit Hezbollah’s military and security activities," and declared that "now is the time for the government of Lebanon to take back control of the entirety of its country."
Meanwhile, Tom Fletcher, United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, noted to the Security Council that UN Secretary-General António Guterres "has insisted... we need the protection of civilians, de-escalation, an immediate cessation of hostilities, and genuine dialogue and negotiations towards a peaceful settlement, in line with the charter."
Fletcher concluded his comments at the briefing on Lebanon with calls for the protection of "all civilians throughout the region," "generous funding for a principled, scaled-up humanitarian response," and "a revival of strategic, calm, rational, hopeful diplomacy."
"Lebanon is exhausted by other people's wars," he said. "It is not asking for help, but for oxygen. Its people can defy the history, the geography, even the politics. They can be stronger than the forces pulling them apart. But they can only do that if Iran and Israel stop fighting their war in Lebanon."
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Sanders Rips Trump-Netanyahu for 'Unraveling International Law' With War on Iran
As evidence of US war crimes mounts, critics around the world argue that "Trump and Hegseth should be sent straight to The Hague to face prosecution."
Mar 10, 2026
As President Donald Trump on Tuesday made what one critic called "the most blasé admission of a war crime by a US president in history," claiming the Navy sunk an Iranian ship and killed over 100 sailors because it was "more fun" than capturing both, Sen. Bernie Sanders tore into him and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over their illegal war on Iran.
"The attacks on Iran by the United States and Israel are unraveling international law, the Geneva Conventions, and the legitimacy of the United Nations. This is extremely dangerous for the future of the planet and humanity," Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement.
While both the Republican-controlled Senate and House of Representatives have refused to pass a war powers resolution to stop the assault, experts worldwide have argued the assault violates the US Constitution, which gives Congress the authority to declare war, and UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force against another state unless it is a "necessary and proportionate" act of self-defense or is authorized by the Security Council.
"If the United States and Israel have the right to launch a unilateral attack against Iran, what is the moral or legal argument against China invading Taiwan, Russia attacking Poland, or North Korea launching missiles into South Korea? There is none," warned Sanders, who has supported war powers resolutions on Iran, Venezuela, and the president's boat bombing campaign. "In Trump's world, any nation has the 'right' to go to war against any other nation for any reason."
"After the horrors of World War II, the international community came together to establish international law—a system of rules designed to prevent aggressive wars and hold nations accountable for violating basic human rights," said the senator, whose father lost relatives in the Holocaust. "Trump and Netanyahu are destroying that effort and are pushing the global community back into international anarchy—a world that produced 10 million dead in World War I and 50 million dead in World War II."
Sanders argued that "we cannot go back to a world where might makes right—where any nation can invade, bomb, or destabilize another country for any reason they choose. That mentality leaves all of us, and future generations, increasingly unsafe."
In addition to opposing Trump's violence at home and abroad, the senator has railed against US complicity in Netanyahu's genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip, where the death toll continues to rise despite an October ceasefire deal. He even forced multiple unsuccessful Senate votes to cut off some US weapons to Israel over the bloodshed in the Palestinian territory.
Netanyahu not only bombed and starved the Palestinians of Gaza after the Hamas-led October 2023 attack on Israel, he also bombarded Lebanon, claiming to target Hezbollah. While a ceasefire agreement to protect the Lebanese people was reached in November 2024, Israel has returned to attacking the country since launching the assault on Iran last month.
More than 1,300 Iranians are now dead, including multiple political leaders as well as around 175 people, mostly children, killed in what increasingly appears to have been a US strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters that Tuesday would "be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran."
Meanwhile, Jostein Hauge, an assistant professor at the UK's University of Cambridge, noted on social media Tuesday that "the Minab school massacre in Iran—carried out by the US government—is one of the deadliest school massacres in modern history."
He put the US president and Pentagon chief in a class with not only Netanyahu but also former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who are all wanted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court.
"Trump and Hegseth should be sent straight to The Hague to face prosecution for war crimes, alongside Netanyahu, Gallant, Putin, and al-Bashir," Hauge said.
While the American public is already enduring some economic fallout of Trump's war on Iran, at least seven US troops have paid with their lives. Eight more "remain listed as severely injured," according to chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell. "Since the start of Operation Epic Fury, approximately 140 US service members have been wounded over 10 days of sustained attacks."
Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), Cory Booker (NJ), Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), Tim Kaine (Va.), Chris Murphy (Conn.), and Adam Schiff (Calif.)—with whom Sanders caucuses—have launched a renewed effort to force new votes on war powers resolutions if Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) refuses to hold committee hearings on Iran.
"Now is the time for Democrats to use all the leverage we have to try to stop this unnecessary war," they said Monday in a joint statement to Semafor. The senators added that Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio "must immediately come before Congress for a public hearing and explain why we're in this war, how it will end, and why they are prioritizing billions of dollars on an open-ended war instead of lowering costs for American families."
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Billionaires Tax Supporters Up in California By Nearly 2-to-1, Poll Shows
"The American people are sick and tired of massive income and wealth inequality," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. "Billionaires need to start paying their fair share."
Mar 10, 2026
Voters in California are supporting a proposed wealth tax on billionaires in their state by a ratio of almost 2-to-1, according to a poll conducted by the Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research.
Politico, which commissioned the poll from the center at the University of California, Berkeley, reported on Tuesday that support for the billionaire tax is currently at 50% of California voters, while just 28% registered opposition.
However, University of California Berkeley political scientist Jack Citrin told Politico that the measure's passage isn't yet a slam dunk because voters remain vulnerable to counterarguments against the plan, which would impose a one-time 5% tax on billionaires' total wealth.
"The yes side has the current lead and you have some strong supporters, so that’s the good news," Citrin explained. "Most experts on the initiative process say that the yes side has an advantage to start with because no one’s been talking about it and it sounds like a good idea... but then once the campaign begins you whittle away at that."
Among other things, the poll found voters were concerned about whether the wealth tax would really be a one-time measure, whether it would push wealthy individuals out of the state, and whether the middle class would be forced to pay more in taxes to make up for the potentially departed billionaires.
Citrin told Politico that supporters of the wealth tax will have to convince voters that billionaires' threats to leave California if the measure passes are a bluff.
"If you’re the yes side you have to hammer away at: this isn’t true, they’re not going to leave, it’s just scare tactics," Citrin said.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who along with other progressives has championed the wealth tax, hailed the UC Berkeley poll as a sign that the political tide is turning against US oligarchs.
"A new poll shows voters overwhelmingly support California’s proposal to tax billionaire wealth to fund healthcare—by nearly a 2-to-1 margin," Sanders wrote in a social media post. "The American people are sick and tired of massive income and wealth inequality. Billionaires need to start paying their fair share."
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, seen as a likely 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, has gone on the record opposing the wealth tax and has said he will campaign for its defeat.
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