Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Tuesday evening unsuccessfully implored his colleagues to support a measure he authored that would have compelled the U.S. State Department to provide Congress a human rights report on Israel as its war against Hamas in Gaza rages on.
The resolution, which Sanders dubbed a “simple request for information,” failed to pass, with 72 senators voting to table it. Only 11 supported it, including Sanders and his colleague from Vermont, Sen. Peter Welch, a Democrat.
Ahead of the vote, Sanders was visibly impassioned while delivering a 20-minute speech on the Senate floor Tuesday night. He described the human toll in Gaza since the latest conflict began with a Hamas attack on Israeli border communities in October: 24,000 Palestinians killed, 60,000 wounded and 2 million displaced, Sanders said. United Nations agencies have warned of widespread disease and starvation.
At the podium, Sanders was flanked by what he called “rather horrific” photographs from Gaza of Palestinian children in crisis — corralled in large crowds, reaching their arms through metal bars and begging for food. The images “say it all,” Sanders said.
“Right now, as we speak, hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza — innocent children — are starving right before our eyes,” Sanders said. “We cannot turn away. We must act.”
Citing a provision of the Foreign Assistance Act, as amended in 1976, Sanders’ resolution would have compelled the State Department to produce a report to Congress on any human rights violations committed by the Israeli government during the war.
Hamas, the governing body in Gaza, killed 1,200 Israelis and took another 250 hostages in a terror attack on Oct. 7, sparking the latest explosion of violence in the region following decades of conflict.
“While there is no question in my mind that Israel has the right to defend itself and go to war against Hamas, who started this terrible situation, Israel does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people and innocent men, women, and children in Gaza,” Sanders said Tuesday. “Tragically, that is what we are seeing right now.”
Unlike his two colleagues in the Vermont delegation — Welch and U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt. — Sanders has declined to call for a cease-fire. That has confounded some progressive supporters of a politician known for his anti-war sentiments. Sanders told VTDigger in December, “If there was something magical in the word ‘cease-fire,’ I would have been the first person in Congress to say it.”
Instead, Sanders said at the time that he would focus his attention on tangible moves that he and Congress could make to alleviate the suffering in Gaza.
The question for Congress and the American people, Sanders said Tuesday, is whether U.S. weapons and military aid are being used to commit war crimes recognized under international law. South Africa has accused Israel of genocide in international court, a charge Israel denies.
A historic ally of Israel, the U.S. administers billions of aid dollars to the nation annually and has increased its allocations during the recent conflict. With U.S. dollars in the mix, Sanders told his colleagues Tuesday that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza “is a tragedy in which we, the United States of America, are complicit.”
“Much of what is happening, much of the bombardment and the other actions that we are seeing now, is happening right now with U.S. arms and equipment,” Sanders said. “In other words, whether we like it or not, the United States is complicit in the nightmare that millions of Palestinians are now experiencing.”
Sanders’ resolution would not have cut off U.S. aid to Israel but instead would “request more information,” he said on the floor. It was a “modest, common-sense proposal,” he told his colleagues. He said it was “frankly hard for me to understand why anyone would oppose it.”
In addition to the 72 senators who voted against moving forward with Sanders’ resolution, 17 did not vote.
Welch was one of nine Democrats who voted alongside Sanders, in addition to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. In a written statement issued after the vote Tuesday night, Welch said he supported Sanders’ resolution “because it asks important questions about the conduct of the war and the rights of civilians. Congress and the American people deserve answers to these questions.”
“The death and destruction in Gaza have been catastrophic,” Welch said. “The bombing by Netanyahu’s government has killed thousands and displaced two million Gazans, who are now completely dependent on international aid. A staggering number of people face imminent starvation and death from disease. Saving innocent lives should be our urgent priority.”
Correction: Due to an editing error, Sen. Rand Paul was misidentified in an earlier version of this story. It has also been edited to clarify that the Foreign Assistance Act was amended in 1976, not enacted in that year.
