Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) warned that President Joe Biden will suffer politically until he changes course and stops sending military aid to Israel unconditionally.
During a Tuesday interview on MSNBC, the Vermont progressive reiterated that the United States needed to put more pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to stop its bombing campaign and allow more humanitarian aid to reach Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Not doing so, he added, would continue to hurt Biden’s standing within the Democratic Party, particularly with younger voters and voters of color, ahead of a matchup in November against presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“The polling is very clear ― the Democratic base wants to stop funding for Netanyahu’s war machine,” Sanders said in a Tuesday interview with MSNBC’s Ana Cabrera.
“So, if your question is, is it going to hurt the president unless he turns this around? Yes, it will,” he added.
Sanders said Netanyahu’s government has the right to go after Hamas following its brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel, but it “does not have the right to kill ― to create a situation where they’re stopping humanitarian aid from getting in.”
“The result of it is children are starving to death right now,” Sanders added. Do we want to be complicit in that? The answer in my view [and] and what the polling shows us [is,] most Americans do not want to be complicit.”
Polls have shown Americans souring on Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in recent weeks. According to a Gallup survey, 55% of Americans disapprove of Israel’s actions, while only 36% approve, a significant drop in support since it polled the same question in November.
On Monday, an Israeli bombing killed seven aid workers in Gaza who were associated with World Central Kitchen, the charity organization founded by Washington, D.C. chef José Andrés. Netanyahu called it an “unintended strike” and said his government would be investigating the incident.
“The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon,” Andrés wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Sanders, in his interview on MSNBC, referred to the incident as a “horror,” and said that the U.S. “should not be giving another nickel to Israel to continue this terrible war against the Palestinian people.”
Biden’s approval rating is historically low for an incumbent president, hovering around 39 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight. The president is also facing a growing movement on the left that is voting “uncommitted” in Democratic presidential primaries this year as a way of protesting Biden’s Israel policy. Activists behind the effort are vowing to deliver another embarrassing rebuke to Biden in Wisconsin’s primary on Tuesday.
But Sanders said he won’t put his disagreement with Biden over Israel over his desire to beat Trump in November.
“I’m going to do everything that I can, despite my disagreement with the president over what’s going on in Gaza, to make sure that Donald Trump is not elected president of the United States. That would be a horrific disaster for our country,” Sanders said on Tuesday.