00:00Mr. President, 60% of our people here in the United States live paycheck to paycheck.
00:09They are struggling to pay for groceries, for housing, for health care, and increasingly
00:17the ability to fill up their gas tanks and their cars in order to get to work.
00:22We also have a $37 trillion national debt.
00:30Bottom line, the American people, whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents,
00:37conservatives, moderates, or progressives, want to make certain that their tax dollars
00:44are spent responsibly.
00:47And in strong and growing numbers, they do not want us to continue spending billions
00:56of their taxpayer dollars in support of the illegal, horrific, and expansionist war policies
01:05of the Netanyahu government in Israel.
01:08Since October 7, 2023, the United States has provided over $21 billion, $21 billion in military
01:22aid to Israel.
01:24And today we are saying loudly and clearly, enough is enough.
01:32Mr. President, we all know that on October 7, 2023, Hamas, a terrorist organization, attacked
01:41Israel.
01:43They killed more than 1,200 innocent men, women, and children, and took hundreds of hostages.
01:52I believe that there is no disagreement in this chamber that, like any other country on earth, Israel
02:02had the absolute right to respond to that barbaric Hamas attack.
02:09But, Mr. President, Israel did not have the right to violate international law and wage an all-out
02:21war of unspeakable destruction against the entire Palestinian people in what experts have correctly
02:31concluded is a genocide.
02:35Israel did not have the right, out of a population of 2.2 million, to kill more than 72,000
02:44Palestinians
02:45in Gaza and wound over 170,000.
02:50That is more than 10 percent of the population.
02:54If that happened here in America, that would be over 30 million Americans dead or wounded.
03:02And in Gaza, a strong majority of the dead and wounded are women, children, and the elderly.
03:11And by the way, that number is likely an underestimate as to the tragedy as bodies are literally being
03:21pulled out of the rubble every single day.
03:26Mr. President, Israel did not have the right to destroy virtually all of Gaza's infrastructure,
03:35including its water and sewer systems and its supply of electricity.
03:42They did not have the right to demolish every one of Gaza's 12 universities, along with hundreds
03:50of schools, dismantling their entire educational system.
03:54The vast majority of the children in Gaza today are not in school.
03:59Israel did not have the right to indiscriminately bomb civilian neighborhoods and damage or destroy
04:07over 90 percent of the housing units in Gaza.
04:12Over 90 percent damaged or destroyed, resulting in the vast majority of the population there
04:21now sleeping in tents.
04:23That is where they are today.
04:26Israel did not have the right to bomb over 90 percent of the hospitals in Gaza, hospitals,
04:34and kill 1,700 health care workers.
04:37And, Mr. President, Israel did not have the right to impose a blockade which prevented food,
04:49water, and medicine from entering Gaza, resulting in thousands of Palestinians being diagnosed with
04:56malnutrition and hundreds actually starving to death.
05:02But, Mr. President, today we are not just talking about Gaza.
05:11In the West Bank, in direct violation of international law that protects Palestinian territory, Israeli soldiers
05:20and settlers since October 2023 have killed over 1,000 Palestinians, including 233 children.
05:33During that period, Mr. President, they have demolished more than 6,000 Palestinian homes and established
05:43more than 200 new illegal settlements and outposts in Palestinian territory.
05:52And let us be clear, because I think there is some confusion about this.
05:57This is not, these actions are not just the results of some extremist, out-of-control settlers who are just
06:10doing whatever they want.
06:11Those actions are consistent with Israeli government policy.
06:17Netanyahu's security cabinet has approved the most sweeping changes to the West Bank's legal status since 1967,
06:27removing nearly all constraints on settlement expansion.
06:33Netanyahu himself declared, this is Netanyahu, quote,
06:38there will never be a Palestinian state, end quote.
06:42And I say that to some people here who still say, well, we're in favor of a two-state solution.
06:48That is not Mr. Netanyahu's position.
06:51Quote, he said, there will never be a Palestinian state.
06:56His finance, Mr. Bezalel Smotrich, bragged that new settlement construction in the West Bank would bury,
07:07that's his word, bury the idea of a Palestinian state.
07:12But Mr. President, it is not just Gaza and the West Bank.
07:18We now know that Netanyahu convinced President Trump to start an unprovoked and unconstitutional war on Iran.
07:30For 40 years, for 40 years, Netanyahu has wanted the United States to participate with Israel in a war against
07:40Iran.
07:40And finally, after 40 years of effort, he finally found in Trump a president willing to go along.
07:50He couldn't get Democrats presidents, Democratic presidents in the past,
07:54couldn't get Republican presidents in the past.
07:56In Trump, he finally found a president willing to go along.
08:00This war in violation of international law has resulted already in the deaths of thousands of civilians,
08:12including hundreds of children in Iran and Lebanon,
08:17including 26 Israeli civilians who are now dead,
08:22and 13 American soldiers who have lost their lives so far in this conflict.
08:29Mr. President, all over the world, certainly including the United States,
08:34hundreds of millions of innocent people are suffering the economic consequences of this war,
08:40with higher prices and growing scarcity of basic goods.
08:46I believe that in Vermont now, the price of gas, regular gas, is about $4 a gallon.
08:52In parts of the country, it is even higher than that.
08:55But, Mr. President, for Netanyahu, Gaza was not enough.
09:05Attacking Iran was not enough.
09:10Netanyahu is now waging a full-blown war of expansion against Lebanon.
09:16That war in Lebanon has not only killed more than 2,000 people,
09:23but has resulted in Israel occupying 14% of Lebanese territory.
09:31Let me repeat that.
09:33The war in Lebanon has not only killed more than 2,000 people,
09:39but has resulted in Israel occupying 14% of Lebanese territory.
09:46Mr. President, the Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz,
09:51has announced that all Lebanese border villages will be demolished.
10:00His exact words following, quote, the model in Gaza, demolish border villages.
10:10Bazalel Smotrich, the finance minister, has warned that Dayaya, a suburb of South Beirut, quote,
10:18will look like Khan Yunus, end quote, a city in Gaza that Israel reduced to rubble.
10:26In other words, what they did in Gaza is now what they intend to do in parts of Lebanon.
10:35And these, Mr. President, are not threats, they are promises.
10:43For all of the reasons that I have given, and more, and you're going to hear more from some of
10:49my colleagues in a few moments,
10:51support for Israel in this country has plummeted.
10:56Today, according to a recent Pew poll, 80% of Democrats now have an unfavorable opinion of Israel,
11:07and 41% of Republicans share that view.
11:12And the numbers in all parties among young people are even higher.
11:20Young people, whether they are young Democrats, progressives, conservatives,
11:25do not want us to continue to fund the horrific war policies of Netanyahu.
11:33A recent Quinnipiac poll also found that 60%, including three-quarters of Democrats,
11:43two-thirds of independents, and 37% of Republicans —
11:49I say that to my Republican colleagues —
11:5137% of Republicans do not want the U.S. sending more military aid to Israel.
12:01And that is why, Mr. President, I am offering today two joint resolutions of disapproval.
12:09The only formal mechanism Congress has to block an arms sale.
12:14The first resolution would block the sale of $151 million in 1,000-pound bombs.
12:23The second would block $295 million in bulldozers the machines used to demolish homes in the West Bank and Gaza
12:33and make a Palestinian state physically impossible.
12:38Mr. President, the time is long overdue for members of the U.S. Senate to start listening to the American
12:50people and not to AIPAC.
12:53The time is now for us to end all U.S. military aid to the extremist Netanyahu government.
13:04And a yes vote is an important way forward.
13:09Mr. President, with that, I would yield to my colleague from Maryland, Senator Chris Van Hollen.
13:17Remember back.
13:26Thank you very much, Mr. President.
Comments