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"There is no place for the death penalty in a humane society," said Rep. Cori Bush, who urged the GOP governor to intervene in Johnny Johnson's case.
Update (9:58 pm ET):
The state of Missouri killed 45-year-old Johnny Johnson with a lethal injection of pentobarbital at 6:33 pm local time Tuesday after the right-wing majority of the U.S. Supreme Court declined to halt his execution.
Johnson expressed remorse in a handwritten statement released before he was executed. As The Associated Pressreported:
"God Bless. Sorry to the people and family I hurt," Johnson's statement said.
As he lay on his back with a sheet up to his neck, Johnson turned his head to the left, appearing to listen to his spiritual adviser shortly before the injection began. He then faced forward with his eyes closed, with no further physical reaction.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent joined by the Supreme Court's other two liberal members—Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan—that "executing a prisoner who has lost his sanity has, for centuries, been branded inhumane."
"The court today paves the way to execute a man with documented mental illness before any court meaningfully investigates his competency to be executed," she continued. "There is no moral victory in executing someone who believes Satan is killing him to bring about the end of the world. Reasonable jurists have already disagreed on Johnson's entitlement to habeas relief. He deserves a hearing where a court can finally determine whether his execution violates the Eighth Amendment. Instead, this court rushes to finality, bypassing fundamental procedural and substantive protections."
Law Dork's Chris Geidner explained that "the trio dissented from the denial of the stay application, as well as the denial of certiorari. So, they not only are asserting that Johnson shouldn't die tonight; they also think SCOTUS should have taken up his case."
Earlier:
Unless the U.S. Supreme Court steps in on Tuesday, Missouri is set to kill 45-year-old Johnny Johnson by lethal injection at 6:00 pm local time after Republican Gov. Mike Parson declined to halt his execution despite concerns about competency.
Johnson's legal team has submitted three petitions to the nation's highest court. While "the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that a person cannot be executed if they lack an understanding of the reason for their pending execution, Law Dork's Chris Geidner noted Monday, "the six-justice conservative majority has not been receptive to death penalty stay requests."
Along with Johnson's attorneys, U.S. lawmakers, human rights campaigners including Amnesty International, and other opponents of capital punishment have long argued against executing the Missouri man, highlighting his mental health history.
Members of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty gathered at the Missouri State Capitol on Tuesday to protest Johnson's looming execution and delivered a petition with more than 3,000 signatures to the governor's office.
"It is egregious to execute someone who does not understand the reason for their execution," Elyse Max, the group's co-director, told the television station KRCG. "It's not a punishment if they don't associate them being murdered by the state with the crime."
Max added that "he should be kept in a medical institution, that could prevent further atrocities from happening and help Johnny to cope with his schizophrenia, command hallucinations, and other issues that come with his severe mental illness."
As two Missouri Democrats in Congress, Reps. Cori Bush and Emanuel Cleaver, wrote to Parson on Friday:
Mr. Johnson has suffered from severe mental illness and cognitive impairments his entire life. He has organic brain disorder and experienced a brutally traumatic and adverse childhood that involved psychiatric hospitalizations, and suffers from schizophrenia that consistently features hallucinations, delusions, and psychotic disorganized thought. He was in the grips of active psychosis when he committed the offense for which he is scheduled to be executed. He currently believes that the reason for his execution is that Satan is using the state of Missouri to bring about the end of the world.
Mr. Johnson has a lengthy history of seeking treatment, including through hospitalization, that establishes the long-standing nature of the diseases and inability of medication to adequately treat them. He has received numerous diagnoses, including schizophrenia, major depression, psychotic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder. Nothing about his life history suggests he is currently malingering or otherwise faking his symptoms.
There is extensive evidence that Mr. Johnson does not have a rational understanding of the reasons for his execution. As such, he is entitled by the Constitution to a "fair hearing" to assess his competency. This is true notwithstanding the Missouri Supreme Court's flawed ruling relying on a single affidavit by a prison therapist over the competency evaluation and report by a licensed psychiatrist.
Bush and Cleaver stressed "the moral depravity of executions" and warned that killing Johnson "would simply destroy yet another community while using the concepts of fairness and justice as a cynical pretext and likely in violation of the Eighth and 14th Amendments to the Constitution."
Parson on Monday rejected calls by the federal lawmakers and others that he halt the execution, order a competency hearing, and grant clemency, saying that "Johnny Johnson's crime is one of the most horrific murders that has come across my desk."
After being released from a mental hospital in January 2002, Johnson was staying with family friends in Valley Park that July and killed their 6-year-old daughter, Casey Williamson. A jury found him guilty of first-degree murder, armed criminal action, kidnapping, and attempted rape in January 2005 and two months later a judge sentenced him to death.
"Casey was an innocent young girl who bravely fought Johnson until he took her life," said Parson. "My office has received countless letters in the last few weeks seeking justice for Casey. Although this won't bring her back, we hope that carrying out Johnson's sentence according to the court's order may provide some closure for Casey's loved ones."
As The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Monday after speaking with the child's parents, Angie Wideman and Ernie Williamson:
Williamson was quoted in a clemency application, filed by Johnson's lawyers, saying he did not want Johnson executed.
But in an interview with the Post-Dispatch, Williamson said those quotes didn't accurately represent what he wants to happen.
"I never said I didn't want Johnny Johnson to die," he said. "I would love to see him die a miserable death."
Williamson said he doesn't support capital punishment. Having spent time himself as an inmate at Potosi Correctional Center, where Johnson is housed, Williamson said death row inmates suffer far more alive than dead.
Larry Komp, one of Johnson's attorneys, said their hearts go out to Casey's family but said "the clemency petition is faithful to the statements of everyone quoted in it."
The governor's denial came after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit on Saturday reversed a stay granted last week by a three-judge panel from that court.
If Johnson is executed Tuesday evening at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic, and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, he will be the fourth person killed by Missouri this year, following Amber McLaughlin on January 3, Leonard Taylor on February 7, and Michael Tisius on June 6.
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Update (9:58 pm ET):
The state of Missouri killed 45-year-old Johnny Johnson with a lethal injection of pentobarbital at 6:33 pm local time Tuesday after the right-wing majority of the U.S. Supreme Court declined to halt his execution.
Johnson expressed remorse in a handwritten statement released before he was executed. As The Associated Pressreported:
"God Bless. Sorry to the people and family I hurt," Johnson's statement said.
As he lay on his back with a sheet up to his neck, Johnson turned his head to the left, appearing to listen to his spiritual adviser shortly before the injection began. He then faced forward with his eyes closed, with no further physical reaction.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent joined by the Supreme Court's other two liberal members—Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan—that "executing a prisoner who has lost his sanity has, for centuries, been branded inhumane."
"The court today paves the way to execute a man with documented mental illness before any court meaningfully investigates his competency to be executed," she continued. "There is no moral victory in executing someone who believes Satan is killing him to bring about the end of the world. Reasonable jurists have already disagreed on Johnson's entitlement to habeas relief. He deserves a hearing where a court can finally determine whether his execution violates the Eighth Amendment. Instead, this court rushes to finality, bypassing fundamental procedural and substantive protections."
Law Dork's Chris Geidner explained that "the trio dissented from the denial of the stay application, as well as the denial of certiorari. So, they not only are asserting that Johnson shouldn't die tonight; they also think SCOTUS should have taken up his case."
Earlier:
Unless the U.S. Supreme Court steps in on Tuesday, Missouri is set to kill 45-year-old Johnny Johnson by lethal injection at 6:00 pm local time after Republican Gov. Mike Parson declined to halt his execution despite concerns about competency.
Johnson's legal team has submitted three petitions to the nation's highest court. While "the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that a person cannot be executed if they lack an understanding of the reason for their pending execution, Law Dork's Chris Geidner noted Monday, "the six-justice conservative majority has not been receptive to death penalty stay requests."
Along with Johnson's attorneys, U.S. lawmakers, human rights campaigners including Amnesty International, and other opponents of capital punishment have long argued against executing the Missouri man, highlighting his mental health history.
Members of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty gathered at the Missouri State Capitol on Tuesday to protest Johnson's looming execution and delivered a petition with more than 3,000 signatures to the governor's office.
"It is egregious to execute someone who does not understand the reason for their execution," Elyse Max, the group's co-director, told the television station KRCG. "It's not a punishment if they don't associate them being murdered by the state with the crime."
Max added that "he should be kept in a medical institution, that could prevent further atrocities from happening and help Johnny to cope with his schizophrenia, command hallucinations, and other issues that come with his severe mental illness."
As two Missouri Democrats in Congress, Reps. Cori Bush and Emanuel Cleaver, wrote to Parson on Friday:
Mr. Johnson has suffered from severe mental illness and cognitive impairments his entire life. He has organic brain disorder and experienced a brutally traumatic and adverse childhood that involved psychiatric hospitalizations, and suffers from schizophrenia that consistently features hallucinations, delusions, and psychotic disorganized thought. He was in the grips of active psychosis when he committed the offense for which he is scheduled to be executed. He currently believes that the reason for his execution is that Satan is using the state of Missouri to bring about the end of the world.
Mr. Johnson has a lengthy history of seeking treatment, including through hospitalization, that establishes the long-standing nature of the diseases and inability of medication to adequately treat them. He has received numerous diagnoses, including schizophrenia, major depression, psychotic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder. Nothing about his life history suggests he is currently malingering or otherwise faking his symptoms.
There is extensive evidence that Mr. Johnson does not have a rational understanding of the reasons for his execution. As such, he is entitled by the Constitution to a "fair hearing" to assess his competency. This is true notwithstanding the Missouri Supreme Court's flawed ruling relying on a single affidavit by a prison therapist over the competency evaluation and report by a licensed psychiatrist.
Bush and Cleaver stressed "the moral depravity of executions" and warned that killing Johnson "would simply destroy yet another community while using the concepts of fairness and justice as a cynical pretext and likely in violation of the Eighth and 14th Amendments to the Constitution."
Parson on Monday rejected calls by the federal lawmakers and others that he halt the execution, order a competency hearing, and grant clemency, saying that "Johnny Johnson's crime is one of the most horrific murders that has come across my desk."
After being released from a mental hospital in January 2002, Johnson was staying with family friends in Valley Park that July and killed their 6-year-old daughter, Casey Williamson. A jury found him guilty of first-degree murder, armed criminal action, kidnapping, and attempted rape in January 2005 and two months later a judge sentenced him to death.
"Casey was an innocent young girl who bravely fought Johnson until he took her life," said Parson. "My office has received countless letters in the last few weeks seeking justice for Casey. Although this won't bring her back, we hope that carrying out Johnson's sentence according to the court's order may provide some closure for Casey's loved ones."
As The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Monday after speaking with the child's parents, Angie Wideman and Ernie Williamson:
Williamson was quoted in a clemency application, filed by Johnson's lawyers, saying he did not want Johnson executed.
But in an interview with the Post-Dispatch, Williamson said those quotes didn't accurately represent what he wants to happen.
"I never said I didn't want Johnny Johnson to die," he said. "I would love to see him die a miserable death."
Williamson said he doesn't support capital punishment. Having spent time himself as an inmate at Potosi Correctional Center, where Johnson is housed, Williamson said death row inmates suffer far more alive than dead.
Larry Komp, one of Johnson's attorneys, said their hearts go out to Casey's family but said "the clemency petition is faithful to the statements of everyone quoted in it."
The governor's denial came after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit on Saturday reversed a stay granted last week by a three-judge panel from that court.
If Johnson is executed Tuesday evening at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic, and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, he will be the fourth person killed by Missouri this year, following Amber McLaughlin on January 3, Leonard Taylor on February 7, and Michael Tisius on June 6.
Update (9:58 pm ET):
The state of Missouri killed 45-year-old Johnny Johnson with a lethal injection of pentobarbital at 6:33 pm local time Tuesday after the right-wing majority of the U.S. Supreme Court declined to halt his execution.
Johnson expressed remorse in a handwritten statement released before he was executed. As The Associated Pressreported:
"God Bless. Sorry to the people and family I hurt," Johnson's statement said.
As he lay on his back with a sheet up to his neck, Johnson turned his head to the left, appearing to listen to his spiritual adviser shortly before the injection began. He then faced forward with his eyes closed, with no further physical reaction.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent joined by the Supreme Court's other two liberal members—Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan—that "executing a prisoner who has lost his sanity has, for centuries, been branded inhumane."
"The court today paves the way to execute a man with documented mental illness before any court meaningfully investigates his competency to be executed," she continued. "There is no moral victory in executing someone who believes Satan is killing him to bring about the end of the world. Reasonable jurists have already disagreed on Johnson's entitlement to habeas relief. He deserves a hearing where a court can finally determine whether his execution violates the Eighth Amendment. Instead, this court rushes to finality, bypassing fundamental procedural and substantive protections."
Law Dork's Chris Geidner explained that "the trio dissented from the denial of the stay application, as well as the denial of certiorari. So, they not only are asserting that Johnson shouldn't die tonight; they also think SCOTUS should have taken up his case."
Earlier:
Unless the U.S. Supreme Court steps in on Tuesday, Missouri is set to kill 45-year-old Johnny Johnson by lethal injection at 6:00 pm local time after Republican Gov. Mike Parson declined to halt his execution despite concerns about competency.
Johnson's legal team has submitted three petitions to the nation's highest court. While "the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that a person cannot be executed if they lack an understanding of the reason for their pending execution, Law Dork's Chris Geidner noted Monday, "the six-justice conservative majority has not been receptive to death penalty stay requests."
Along with Johnson's attorneys, U.S. lawmakers, human rights campaigners including Amnesty International, and other opponents of capital punishment have long argued against executing the Missouri man, highlighting his mental health history.
Members of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty gathered at the Missouri State Capitol on Tuesday to protest Johnson's looming execution and delivered a petition with more than 3,000 signatures to the governor's office.
"It is egregious to execute someone who does not understand the reason for their execution," Elyse Max, the group's co-director, told the television station KRCG. "It's not a punishment if they don't associate them being murdered by the state with the crime."
Max added that "he should be kept in a medical institution, that could prevent further atrocities from happening and help Johnny to cope with his schizophrenia, command hallucinations, and other issues that come with his severe mental illness."
As two Missouri Democrats in Congress, Reps. Cori Bush and Emanuel Cleaver, wrote to Parson on Friday:
Mr. Johnson has suffered from severe mental illness and cognitive impairments his entire life. He has organic brain disorder and experienced a brutally traumatic and adverse childhood that involved psychiatric hospitalizations, and suffers from schizophrenia that consistently features hallucinations, delusions, and psychotic disorganized thought. He was in the grips of active psychosis when he committed the offense for which he is scheduled to be executed. He currently believes that the reason for his execution is that Satan is using the state of Missouri to bring about the end of the world.
Mr. Johnson has a lengthy history of seeking treatment, including through hospitalization, that establishes the long-standing nature of the diseases and inability of medication to adequately treat them. He has received numerous diagnoses, including schizophrenia, major depression, psychotic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder. Nothing about his life history suggests he is currently malingering or otherwise faking his symptoms.
There is extensive evidence that Mr. Johnson does not have a rational understanding of the reasons for his execution. As such, he is entitled by the Constitution to a "fair hearing" to assess his competency. This is true notwithstanding the Missouri Supreme Court's flawed ruling relying on a single affidavit by a prison therapist over the competency evaluation and report by a licensed psychiatrist.
Bush and Cleaver stressed "the moral depravity of executions" and warned that killing Johnson "would simply destroy yet another community while using the concepts of fairness and justice as a cynical pretext and likely in violation of the Eighth and 14th Amendments to the Constitution."
Parson on Monday rejected calls by the federal lawmakers and others that he halt the execution, order a competency hearing, and grant clemency, saying that "Johnny Johnson's crime is one of the most horrific murders that has come across my desk."
After being released from a mental hospital in January 2002, Johnson was staying with family friends in Valley Park that July and killed their 6-year-old daughter, Casey Williamson. A jury found him guilty of first-degree murder, armed criminal action, kidnapping, and attempted rape in January 2005 and two months later a judge sentenced him to death.
"Casey was an innocent young girl who bravely fought Johnson until he took her life," said Parson. "My office has received countless letters in the last few weeks seeking justice for Casey. Although this won't bring her back, we hope that carrying out Johnson's sentence according to the court's order may provide some closure for Casey's loved ones."
As The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Monday after speaking with the child's parents, Angie Wideman and Ernie Williamson:
Williamson was quoted in a clemency application, filed by Johnson's lawyers, saying he did not want Johnson executed.
But in an interview with the Post-Dispatch, Williamson said those quotes didn't accurately represent what he wants to happen.
"I never said I didn't want Johnny Johnson to die," he said. "I would love to see him die a miserable death."
Williamson said he doesn't support capital punishment. Having spent time himself as an inmate at Potosi Correctional Center, where Johnson is housed, Williamson said death row inmates suffer far more alive than dead.
Larry Komp, one of Johnson's attorneys, said their hearts go out to Casey's family but said "the clemency petition is faithful to the statements of everyone quoted in it."
The governor's denial came after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit on Saturday reversed a stay granted last week by a three-judge panel from that court.
If Johnson is executed Tuesday evening at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic, and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, he will be the fourth person killed by Missouri this year, following Amber McLaughlin on January 3, Leonard Taylor on February 7, and Michael Tisius on June 6.
"When comparing natural gas and renewables for energy security, renewables generally offer greater long-term energy security due to their local availability, reduced dependence on imports, and lower vulnerability to geopolitical disruptions."
As Republican President-elect Donald Trump prepares to further accelerate already near-record liquefied natural gas exports after taking office next week, a report published Friday details how soaring U.S. foreign LNG sales are "causing price volatility and environmental and safety risks for American families in addition to granting geopolitical advantages to the Chinese government."
The report, Strategic Implications of U.S. LNG Exports, was published by the American Security Project, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, and offers a "comprehensive analysis of the impact of the natural gas export boom from the advent of fracking through the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and provides insight into how the tidal wave of U.S. exports in the global market is altering regional and domestic security environments."
According to a summary of the publication:
The United States is the world's leading producer of natural gas and largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Over the past decade, affordable U.S. LNG exports have facilitated a global shift from coal and mitigated the geopolitical risks of fossil fuel imports from Russia and the Middle East. Today, U.S. LNG plays a critical role in diversifying global energy supplies and reducing reliance on adversarial energy suppliers. However, rising global dependence on natural gas is creating new vulnerabilities, including pricing fluctuations, shipping route bottlenecks, and inherent health, safety, and environmental hazards. The U.S. also faces geopolitical challenges related to the LNG trade, including China's stockpiling and resale of cheap U.S. LNG exports to advance its renewable energy industry and expand its global influence.
"When comparing natural gas and renewables for energy security, renewables generally offer greater long-term energy security due to their local availability, reduced dependence on imports, and lower vulnerability to geopolitical disruptions," the report states.
American Security Project CEO Matthew Wallin said in a statement that "action needs to be taken to ensure Americans are insulated from global price shocks, the impacts of climate change, and new health and safety risks."
"Our country must also do more to protect its interests from geopolitical rivals like China that subsidize their growth and influence by reselling cheap U.S. LNG at higher spot prices," Wallin asserted. "U.S. LNG has often been depicted as a transition fuel, and our country must ensure that it continues working towards that transition to clean sources instead of becoming dependent on yet another vulnerable fuel source."
Critics have
warned that LNG actually hampers the transition to a green economy. LNG is mostly composed of methane, which has more than 80 times the planetary heating power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere.
Despite President Joe Biden's 2024 pause on LNG export permit applications, his administration has presided over what climate campaigners have called a "staggering" LNG expansion, including Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass 2 export terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana and more than a dozen other projects. Last month, the U.S. Department of Energy acknowledged that approving more LNG exports would raise domestic energy prices, increase pollution, and exacerbate the climate crisis.
In addition to promising to roll back Biden's recent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling across more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal territory, Trump—who has nominated a bevy of fossil fuel proponents for his Cabinet—is expected to further increase LNG production and exports.
A separate report published Friday by Friends of the Earth and Public Citizen examined 14 proposed LNG export terminals that the Trump administration is expected to fast-track, creating 510 million metric tons of climate pollution–"equivalent to the annual emissions of 135 new coal plants."
While campaigning for president, Trump vowed to "frack, frack, frack; and drill, baby, drill." This, as fossil fuel interests poured $75 million into his campaign coffers, according to The New York Times.
"This research reveals the disturbing reality of an LNG export boom under a second Trump term," Friends of the Earth senior energy campaigner Raena Garcia said in a statement referring to her group's new report. "This reality will cement higher energy prices for Americans and push the world into even more devastating climate disasters. The incoming administration is poised to haphazardly greenlight LNG exports that are clearly intended to put profit over people."
"Academics will make careers out of writing about past atrocities while ignoring the ones happening in real time," said one critic.
In what one observer decried as an "absolutely shameful" rebuff of American Historical Association members' overwhelming approval of a resolution condemning Israel's annihilation of education infrastructure in Gaza, the elected council of the nation's oldest learned society on Thursday vetoed the measure over a claimed technicality.
AHA members voted 428-88 earlier this month in favor of a resolution opposing Israeli scholasticide—defined by United Nations experts as the "systemic obliteration of education through the arrest, detention, or killing of teachers, students, and staff, and the destruction of educational infrastructure"—during the 15-month assault on the Gaza Strip.
However, the AHA's 16-member elected council voted 11-4 with one abstention to reject the measure, according to Inside Higher Ed, which noted that the panel "could have accepted the resolution or sent it to the organization's roughly 10,450 members for a vote."
While the council said in a statement that it "deplores any intentional destruction of Palestinian educational institutions, libraries, universities, and archives in Gaza," it determined that the resolution does not comply with the AHA's constitution and bylaws "because it lies outside the scope of the association's mission and purpose."
Council member and University of Oklahoma history professor Anne Hyde told Inside Higher Ed that she voted to veto the resolution "to protect the AHA's reputation as an unbiased historical actor," adding that the Gaza war "is not settled history, so we're not clear what happened or who to blame or when it began even, so it isn't something that a professional organization should be commenting on yet."
However, Van Gosse, a co-chair and founder of Historians for Peace and Democracy—the resolution's author—told the outlet that "we are extremely shocked by this decision," which "overturns the democratic decision" of members' "landslide vote."
Lake Forest College history professor Rudi Batzell said on social media: "Shame on the AHA leadership for vetoing the scholasticide in Gaza resolution. Members voted overwhelmingly to support, and the resolution was written so narrowly and so carefully to meet exactly this kind of procedural objection. Craven."
The AHA council's veto follows last week's move by the Modern Language Association executive council, as Common Dreams reported, to block members of the preeminent U.S. professional group for scholars of language and literature from voting on a resolution supporting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.
"Israel chose not to go to war simply against Hamas, but has instead waged an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people," Sanders wrote.
With a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel set to go into effect as soon as Sunday, Senator Bernie Sanders released a statement Friday saying that he's please the Israeli security cabinet has signed off on the agreement, but highlighted the approved deal "is essentially the same agreement that Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and his extremist government rejected in May of last year."
"More than 10,000 people have died since that proposal was presented, and the suffering of the hostages and innocent people in Gaza only deepened," he wrote.
On Wednesday, President Biden announced the breakthrough, saying “this is the ceasefire agreement I introduced last spring."
What's more, the independent senator from Vermont said that Americans must "grapple with our role in this dark chapter." The U.S. government, he said, "allowed this mass atrocity to continue by providing an endless supply of weapons to Netanyahu and failing to exert meaningful leverage."
The U.S. has provided Israel with at least $17.9 billion in military aid to its ally in the Middle East since October 2023, when Israel's military campaign in Gaza commenced following an attack by Hamas on Israel. In early January the State Department informed Congress of a planned $8 billion arms sale.
Local health officials in Gaza say the death toll in the enclave stands at over 46,000. However, a recently published peer-reviewed analysis estimates that Israel's assault on Gaza had actually killed 64,260 people—mostly civilian men, women, and children—have been killed between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2024—a figure significantly higher than the official one reported by the enclave's health ministry.
Multiple human rights organizations have said that Israel's conduct in Gaza constitutes genocide or acts of genocide, and the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes in Gaza. The body has also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes against humanity,
In his Friday remarks, Sanders called Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on Israel "barbaric" and stated that Israel "clearly had the right to defend itself against Hamas."
However, he said, "Israel chose not to go to war simply against Hamas, but has instead waged an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people."