On Wednesday, Sanders introduced six resolutions blocking six sales of different weapons contained within the $20 billion weapons deal announced by the Biden administration in August. The sales include many of the types of weapons that Israel has used in its relentless campaign of extermination in Gaza over the past year.

“Sending more weapons is not only immoral, it is also illegal. The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act lay out clear requirements for the use of American weaponry – Israel has egregiously violated those rules,” said Sanders. “There is a mountain of documentary evidence demonstrating that these weapons are being used in violation of U.S. and international law.”

This will be the first time in history that Congress has ever voted on legislation to block a weapons sale to Israel, as the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project pointed out. This is despite the U.S. having sent Israel over $250 billion in military assistance in recent decades, according to analyst Stephen Semler, as Israel has carried out ethnic cleansings and massacres across Palestine and in Lebanon.

The resolutions are not likely to pass; even if they did pass the heavily pro-Israel Congress, they would likely be vetoed by President Joe Biden, who has been insistent on sending weapons to Israel with no strings attached.

However, Sanders’s move is in line with public opinion. Polls have consistently found that the majority of the public supports an end to Israel’s genocide; a poll by the Institute for Global Affairs released this week found, for instance, that a majority of Americans think the U.S. should stop supporting Israel or make support contingent on Israeli officials’ agreement to a ceasefire deal. This includes nearly 80 percent of Democrats.

  • lennybird@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    You’re saying there were more Sanders supporters in 2016 than Hillary supporters in 2008? Yeah… That’s not exactly helping your argument.

    But anyway: 15% of Hillary supporters voted for Mccain; 12% of Sanders supporters voted for Trump.

    But don’t worry, I’ll be voting Harris.

    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      This is the part where I just assume you’re lying because I’ve seen you do it so many times before, then you link an obviously biased article which if I wanted to dig into its methodology I would tear it to shreds. But it’s not worth my time. So let’s skip that bit and go to the part where you throw out a red herring and/or move the goalposts. Something about Gaza? Or do you want to do the lazy thing and just start chanting “blue MAGA”

      • lennybird@lemmy.world
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        1 hour ago

        This is the part where you deflect away from the substance and attack the person with ever-moving goalposts because you know you have nothing and were proven wrong at every single turn of our little conversation — yet your ego will not permit you to walk away from this. So here, I’ll do you a favor buddy and show you how this is the part where I walk away because you bring nothing of value to add to this discussion: