I perceive that there are hundreds of thousands of Individuals who disagree with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on the horrible battle in Gaza. I’m one among them.
Whereas Israel had a proper to defend itself in opposition to the horrific Hamas terrorist assault of seven October 2023, which killed 1,200 harmless folks and took 250 hostages, it didn’t have the best to wage an all-out battle in opposition to your complete Palestinian folks.
It didn’t have the best to kill 42,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of whom have been kids, girls and the aged, or injure over 100,000 folks in Gaza. It didn’t have the best to destroy Gaza’s infrastructure and housing and healthcare methods. It didn’t have the best to bomb each one among Gaza’s 12 universities. It didn’t have the best to dam humanitarian assist, inflicting large malnutrition in kids and, actually, hunger.
And that’s the reason I’m doing all the things I can to dam US navy assist and offensive weapons gross sales to the rightwing extremist Netanyahu authorities in Israel. And I do know that lots of you share these emotions. And a few of you’re saying, “How can I vote for Kamala Harris if she is supporting this horrible battle?” And that could be a particularly reasonable query.
And let me offer you my finest reply. And that’s that even on this problem, Donald Trump and his rightwing mates are worse. Within the Senate and in Congress Republicans have labored additional time to dam humanitarian assist to the ravenous kids in Gaza. The president and vice-president each help getting as a lot humanitarian assist into Gaza as quickly as potential.
Trump has mentioned that Netanyahu is doing a great job and that Biden is holding him again. He has recommended that the Gaza Strip would make glorious beachfront property for improvement. It’s no marvel Netanyahu prefers to have Donald Trump in workplace.
However much more importantly, and this I promise you, after Harris wins we are going to, collectively, do all the things we are able to to alter US coverage towards Netanyahu – together with an instantaneous ceasefire, the return of all hostages, a surge of large humanitarian assist, the stopping of settler assaults on the West Financial institution, and the rebuilding of Gaza for the Palestinian folks.
And let me be clear. We may have, in my opinion, a significantly better likelihood of fixing US coverage with Harris than with Trump, who’s extraordinarily near Netanyahu and sees him as a like-minded, rightwing extremist ally.
However let me additionally say this, and I cope with this each single day as a US senator. As necessary as Gaza is, and as strongly as many people really feel about this problem, it isn’t the one problem at stake on this election.
If Trump wins, girls on this nation will endure an unlimited setback and lose the flexibility to regulate their very own our bodies. That isn’t acceptable.
If Trump wins, to be trustworthy with you, the battle in opposition to the local weather disaster is over. Whereas nearly each scientist who has studied the difficulty understands that the local weather disaster is actual and an existential risk to our nation and the world, Trump believes it’s a “hoax”. And if the US, the most important financial system on the planet, stops remodeling our power system away from fossil gas, each different nation – China, Europe, all around the world, they may do precisely the identical factor. And God solely is aware of the sort of planet we are going to depart to our youngsters and future generations.
If Trump wins, at a time of huge revenue and wealth inequality, he’ll demand much more tax breaks for the very richest folks in our nation, whereas reducing again on applications that working households desperately want. The wealthy will solely get richer, whereas the minimal wage will stay at $7.25 an hour, and hundreds of thousands of our fellow employees will proceed to earn hunger wages.
Did you all see the current Trump rally at Madison Sq. Backyard? Nicely, I did, and what I can inform you is that as a nation, as all of you understand, we’ve struggled for years in opposition to unimaginable odds to attempt to overcome all types of bigotry – whether or not it’s racism, whether or not it’s sexism, whether or not it’s homophobia, whether or not it’s xenophobia, you identify it.
We have now tried to battle in opposition to bigotry, however that’s precisely what we noticed on show at that unbelievable Trump rally. It was not a query of audio system getting up there and disagreeing with Kamala Harris on the problems. That wasn’t the difficulty in any respect. They have been attacking her just because she was a girl and a girl of colour. Excessive vulgar sexism and racism. Is that basically the sort of America that we are able to permit?
So let me conclude by saying this. That is essentially the most consequential election in our lifetimes. Lots of you’ve got variations of opinion with Harris on Gaza. So do I. However we can’t sit this election out. Trump must be defeated. Let’s do all the things we are able to within the subsequent week to guarantee that Kamala Harris is our subsequent president.
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Bernie Sanders is a US senator, and chair of the well being schooling labor and pensions committee. He represents the state of Vermont, and is the longest-serving impartial within the historical past of Congress
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