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For Immediate Release
January, 17 2025, 02:39pm EDT
Contact:
press@sanders.senate.gov
With Gaza Ceasefire Near, Sanders Statement on What U.S. Must Learn from Its Role in the Horrific Tragedy
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today released the following statement ahead of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which is poised to begin on Sunday:
I am pleased that the Israeli security cabinet has finally approved a ceasefire agreement. My hope is that the destruction will soon end and that the hostages will finally be returned to their families. Sadly, the deal approved today is essentially the same agreement that Prime Minister 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.
Let’s be clear: On October 7, 2023, Hamas and its late leader, Yahya Sinwar, committed a barbaric terrorist attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages. Israel clearly had the right to defend itself against Hamas. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is correct in indicting Mr. Sinwar as a war criminal for these atrocities.
Tragically, Israel chose not to go to war simply against Hamas, but has instead waged an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people. In a Gazan population of 2.2 million, more than 46,000 people have been killed and 110,000 injured, according to the United Nations. A peer-reviewed study in the medical journal Lancet concludes that the total is much higher, with some 64,000 Palestinians killed. The vast majority of those dead are women and children.
But it’s not just the horrific loss of human life we must contend with. Netanyahu’s war machine has damaged or destroyed two-thirds of all structures in Gaza, including 92 percent of the housing units. Most hospitals and primary healthcare facilities have been bombed, leaving Gazans without basic medical care. The civilian infrastructure has been devastated, including 70 percent of water and sanitation plants. Every one of Gaza’s 12 universities has been bombed, as have hundreds of schools. There has been no electricity in Gaza for 15 months. And Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian aid have left tens of thousands of children facing malnutrition and starvation. Netanyahu has overseen these policies, and the ICC is right to indict him as a war criminal, alongside Mr. Sinwar.
As this horrific war hopefully comes to an end, the suffering of the Palestinian people remains. This ceasefire is just the first step. Massive amounts of humanitarian aid must immediately reach starving, malnourished people in Gaza. The UN must be granted unfettered access to the Gaza Strip. The international community must insist that the ceasefire be made permanent. Credible plans for rebuilding Gaza must be laid out. Peaceful governance must be established, with the Palestinian people in control.
Finally, as Americans, we must grapple with our role in this dark chapter. The United States allowed this mass atrocity to continue by providing an endless supply of weapons to Netanyahu and failing to exert meaningful leverage. This blanket military support took place in clear violation of U.S. and international law. This must not happen again. Future political leaders should learn from this terrible lesson and restore respect for our own laws and moral principles.
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"Academics will make careers out of writing about past atrocities while ignoring the ones happening in real time," said one critic.
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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 toInside 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 Dreamsreported, 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.
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"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.
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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."
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The announcement has been long demanded by rights advocates including Democratic lawmakers who have recently called on Biden to affirm the ERA's ratification in order to protect reproductive rights that have been gutted by the Republican Party.
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The statement came five years after Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA. With that move, state lawmakers completed the requirement that three-fourths of U.S. states ratify the amendment.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, ratification deadlines that were set by Congress after the ERA had passed by the time Virginia ratified the amendment, and five states have rescinded their approval.
But a senior White House official toldCNN Friday that the president's decision was informed by the American Bar Association's opinion that "no time limit was included in the text of the Equal Rights Amendment."
"The Constitution's framers wisely avoided the chaos that would have resulted if states were able to take back the ratifying votes at any time," according to the legal association.
Former U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who in November called on Biden to take every action available to him in order to protect reproductive rights, including ensuring the ERA was recognized as part of the Constitution, called the president's announcement "an historic and consequential step."
"For over a century, we have fought for the principle that 'equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex,'" said Bush. "These 24 words must now be published and enshrined in our Constitution to provide a crucial safeguard against discrimination for women, LGBTQ+ folks, and all marginalized communities."
With Biden issuing his opinion, advocates have held that the archivist of the United States, Colleen Shogan, must now certify and publish the amendment.
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