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'Every Single Senator Should Be Supporting' Sanders Bid to Block Massive New Arms Sale to Israel
Sen. Bernie Sanders said he would introduce a joint resolution to block the proposed sale of $18 billion worth of warplanes and other weaponry to Israel.
Jul 12, 2024
As the Biden administration pushes Congress to approve an additional $18 billion arms sale to Israel even as it wages what much of the international community considers a genocidal war against the people of Gaza, Palestine defenders on Friday urged U.S. senators to support an effort by Sen. Bernie Sanders to block weapons transfers to the key Middle Eastern ally.
The Biden administration is urging congressional lawmakers to sign off on the sale of a package involving as many as 50 McDonnell Douglas F-15 fighters, as well as munitions, training, and other support, to Israel. The sale cleared a key hurdle last month when two holdouts—Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the ranking Democratic member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the top Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democrat—agreed to support the transfer.
If given final approval, the sale would be one of the largest to Israel since it began its nine-month assault on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7 attacks. More than 137,500 Palestinians have been killed, maimed, or left missing by Israel's onslaught, which is the subject of both an International Court of Justice genocide case and International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan's bid to arrest Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas Chief Yahya Sinwar.
The Biden administration has approved billions of dollars in U.S. military aid and more than 100 arms sales to Israel since October. This, atop the nearly $4 billion Israel already got from Washington annually.
"While much of the media is focused on the drama of the U.S. presidential election, we must not lose sight of what is happening in Gaza, where an unprecedented humanitarian crisis continues to get even worse," Sanders said Friday.
"Nine months into this war, more than 38,000 people have been killed and 88,000 injured—60% of whom are women, children, or elderly. The full toll is likely higher, with thousands more buried beneath the rubble," he continued. "Nine in 10 Gazans—1.9 million people—have been driven from their homes."
"Many people have been displaced four or five times, and most do not have homes to return to, with more than 60% of residential buildings damaged or destroyed," he added.
"Israel continues to restrict the entry of [United Nations] humanitarian aid trucks into Gaza, prevent the entry of key humanitarian items, and obstruct aid workers' access to many areas," the senator noted. "These restrictions have prevented aid organizations from setting up a sustained, effective response."
Sanders stressed:
Yet, in the midst of this horror and violations of international law, the United States continues to send billions of dollars and thousands of bombs and other weapons to support this war. We, as Americans, are complicit.
We must end our support for Netanyahu's war. Not another nickel to make this horrific situation even worse. I intend to do everything I can to block further arms transfers to Israel, including through joint resolutions of disapproval of any arms sales. The United States must not help a right-wing extremist and war criminal continue this atrocity.
Palestine defenders backed Sanders' effort.
"Every single senator should be supporting Sen. Sanders upcoming joint resolution of disapproval against an $18 billion weapons giveaway to Israel, which would further enmesh and implicate the U.S. in Israel's genocide against Palestinians in Gaza," Institute for Middle East Understanding policy director Josh Ruebner said on social media.
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Despite Human Rights Concerns, El Salvador's Bukele Reelected in Landslide
"Human rights violations have been constant during the Bukele administration," said one activist. "We can only expect it to continue growing."
Feb 05, 2024
As right-wing Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday night declared victory in his bid for a constitutionally proscribed second term, critics underscored the human rights costs of a state of emergency that's sacrificed civil liberties in the name of security.
Although votes are still being counted, there was no doubt on Monday of Bukele's landslide reelection to another five-year term. The self-described "world's coolest dictator" claimed to have won 85% of the vote, a figure roughly equal to exit polling figures published by Salvadoran and international media.
El Salvador's Constitution probits reelection. However, after securing a legislative majority in 2021, Bukele's Nueva Ideas (New Ideas) party purged the constitutional court's judges and replaced them with ones loyal to the president. The court subsequently ruled Bukele was eligible to run again.
"Bukele, the evangelical dictator and human rights violator, holds on to power in El Salvador for five more years," lamented prominent Salvadoran academic Aníbal Garzón.
"But we leave the E.U. and U.S. sanctions for Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, since he 'may be a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch,'" Garzón added, referring to then-U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's purported quote about Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza García.
Speaking before an elated crowd outside the presidential palace in San Salvador, Bukele said Sunday night that "today, El Salvador has broken all the records of any democracy in the history of the world! Never before has a project won with the number of votes we obtained."
"We literally went from being the most unsafe country in the world to the safest in the Western Hemisphere," he continued.
Then, taking aim at his detractors, Bukele noted that "they say I'm violating human rights."
"Whose human rights?" he asked. "Of honest people? No. Putting the human rights of honest people before the human rights of criminals is all we've done, and they call that 'violating human rights'?"
"I ask the organizations, the governments of foreign countries, I ask the journalists, why do you want us to be killed?" he continued. "Why do you want to see the blood of Salvadorans?... Why must we and our children die so that you are happy that we're respecting the false democracy that you don't even respect in your own countries?"
Abraham Abrego, director of strategic litigation at the Salvadoran human rights watchdog Cristosal, told the Buenos Aires Herald that, under a state of emergency declared in 2022 by Bukele, "we are seeing things we hadn't seen since the armed conflict, like forced disappearances and systemic torture," a reference to crimes committed by U.S.-backed death squad governments during El Salvador's 1979-92 civil war.
"Any person can be arrested because these raids are being carried out without prior investigation or court order," Abrego added.
Rina Montti, also from Cristosal, said: "Human rights violations have been constant during the Bukele administration. We can only expect it to continue growing because everything indicates that he will continue with these public policies. The dictatorship is going to be fully legalized."
As the Herald noted:
By the end of 2023, over 74,000 people had been arrested since the beginning of the state of emergency. Less than a third were estimated to be gang members, charged merely based on neighborhood testimony, prior arrests, or for simply having tattoos. Currently, around 2% of the adult population is incarcerated.
Amnesty International presented a report in December of last year, calling the situation in El Salvador "extremely alarming." In addition to abuse in penitentiaries, the NGO warned about the weakening of judicial independence and a crackdown on freedom of expression, with government discourse in the media consistently targeting and harassing groups that defend human rights and journalists who publish any form of criticism.
Citing figures from the Association of Journalists of El Salvador (APES), the Salvadoran news website El Faro said there have been at least 164 press freedom violations or attacks since January 5, the bulk occurring on Sunday. The most serious alleged violations involve police blocking journalists from working near polling centers.
APES reported cases of "intimidation, harassment, and stigmatizing statements by public officials."
El Faro also detailed what it said were government violations of the country's election rules, airing pro-Bukele television and radio ads despite a ban on such broadcasts three days before elections, poll workers in some locations wearing identification from Bukele's Nuevas Ideas party, and the president campaigning on Election Day.
On Monday, Democratic U.S. Sens. Ben Cardin (Md.), Dick Durbin (Ill.), Tim Kaine (Va.), and Jeff Merkley (Ore.) said in a statement, "We are troubled by the unconstitutional moves that strongly influenced the outcome of Sunday's election... and the rapid undermining of the rule of law and human rights protections."
The senators' statement follows a January 30 letter by U.S. House Democrats led by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) to Secretary of State Antony Blinken decrying "democratic backsliding and an increase in reports of human rights violations in El Salvador."
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With the Right to Boycott Under Attack, Some Members of Congress Are Pushing Back
Exercising one’s right to boycott is quintessentially American, and that reminder was clearly due
Jul 24, 2019
More than 250 million Americans, some 78 percent of the population, live in states with anti-boycott laws or policies. With the right to boycott under attack across the United States, some members of Congress are pushing back against these dangerous and unrelenting attacks.
Last week, Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN), along with Representatives John Lewis (D-GA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), introduced a resolution reaffirming the First Amendment right to participate in political boycotts as grounded in America's history dating back to the days of Samuel Adams and the Boston Tea Party.
Their recent legislative push stands in stark contrast to repeated attempts by other members of Congress to stamp out constitutionally protected boycotts of Israel.
These attempts include the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Rob Portman (R-OH), and Reps. Peter Roskam (R-IL) and Juan Vargas (D-CA) introduced in the previous Congress. The bill would have banned participating in political boycotts of countries friendly to the United States when the boycott is called for by an international organization, such as the United Nations.
The bill would have carried a penalty of up to $1 million for engaging in the First Amendment right to boycott. And, believe it or not, that's an improvement. Earlier versions of the bill had included jail time. The bill generated some key opposition and died in Congress last year, but rumor is, this bill might be reintroduced again in this Congress.
Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Cory Gardner (R-CO), and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) also managed to push the Combating BDS Act through the Senate as a part of a larger bill. That bill encourages states to create laws that three federal courts have now blocked as unconstitutional. Those laws violate the First Amendment by penalizing businesses, such as our client The Arkansas Times, and individuals who refuse to sign a pledge certifying that they do not and will not engage in a constitutionally-protected boycott of Israel. Penalties often come in the form of denying government contracts to those who dare to disagree with their government.
Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) strongly argued that the anti-BDS legislation was unconstitutional, but the Senate passed it anyway. The bill has not gotten a vote in the House, although Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) has tried to find ways to get the House to consider it. The members of Congress who voted for or continue to support the various anti-boycott bills seem to have forgotten that the right to boycott is a proud part of this country's constitutional tradition.
As Reps. Lewis, Omar, and Tlaib's First Amendment resolution reminds these members with selective memory, Americans boycotted Imperial Japan in 1937 in an attempt to slow the country's progress in World War II. Americans boycotted Nazi Germany in response to the dehumanization of Jewish people that led up to the Holocaust. Many Americans also led the boycott campaign against South Africa in protest of apartheid.
Exercising one's right to boycott is quintessentially American, and that reminder was clearly due. Rep. Omar has been attacked on numerous occasions under the premise of anti-Semitism for advocating for political boycotts of Israel due to her position on human rights. And Senator Rubio singled out Rep. Tlaib as anti-Semitic for her criticism of the Combating BDS Act as antithetical to First Amendment principles. Sen. Rubio, notably, did not similarly lambast other critics of the bill for voicing similar criticism.
It's no surprise that Reps. Omar and Tlaib took action by introducing this resolution. It's also not surprising that Rep. Lewis is backing this resolution. He may be a long-time supporter of Israel, and he may not support BDS, but Rep. Lewis is also a long-time civil rights leader and one of the strongest protectors in Congress of the fundamental right to protest. While his views on Israel may stand in contrast to the views of his co-sponsors, all three are united in support of free speech, expression, and the right to boycott.
At the ACLU, we do not take a position on BDS or on the Israel-Palestine conflict. We do however believe strongly in the Constitution and the rights described by this resolution. The right to political boycott is a crucial part of our First Amendment and an important tool for advocacy in the pursuit of equality both here and abroad. The legislation in Congress that seeks to silence this speech is contrary to our Constitution and the rights of all people living in America. The courts know so - it's about time Congress does as well.
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