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Floor Speech
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Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I listened carefully to what Senator Scott and others have said about the barbarous acts committed by Hamas against innocent men, women, and children--the mowing down by machine guns of young people who were doing nothing more than attending a dance; the murder of babies. This is a horrific--horrific--act, precipitating a worldwide crisis, and the United States of America--all of us--condemn this act.
In my view, the State of Israel has the absolute right to defend itself against Hamas and terrorism in general--no debate on that. But what I ask my colleagues to also consider is that while we fully appreciate the horrific attack by Hamas against innocent people of Israel, I ask you also to understand that right now there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza who have lost their homes. They have been thrown out of their homes. They have no food. They have no water. They have no fuel. And I remind my colleagues that half of those people are children. Half of the people in Gaza are children. So, yes, we are united in doing everything we can to destroy Hamas and their terrorism, but I implore you, do not take Hamas's inhumanity and brutality and terrorism against children who are 3 or 5 years old.
I ask you to think for a moment. Think about it. I have a State that I represent, the State of Vermont--630,000 people. A million people-- most of them are poor. They had nothing to begin with. Before this whole business, Gaza was one of the most desperately poor places in the world. Youth unemployment was 75 percent, many of their people dependent on the U.N. for basic survival.
So what I am asking people to take a look at is to understand what our country is about, and what our country must not be involved in is making the horrific and miserable situation in Gaza even worse.
Many of the families--and, again, these are people thrown out of their homes. They don't know where they are going. They don't know who will accept them. They don't know if they are ever going back to their homes. And they were poor to begin with. Do we really want to deny those people aid from the U.N. and other agencies to feed the children, to provide water for them? Is that really what we are about?
Of course, it goes without saying that we have to do everything we can to make sure that not one nickel goes to the murderous Hamas organization, but at the same time, we have to stand with the innocent women and children in Palestine who are suffering today and are facing an almost unprecedented modern humanitarian disaster.
So today, in the midst of this crisis, U.S. and U.N. assistance in Gaza is aimed squarely at addressing the basic needs of the Palestinian people, including humanitarian aid and water and health programs. The United States and the United Nations go to great lengths to ensure that aid gets to the people needed and is not diverted, through trusted partners like Catholic Relief Services. The Israeli Government itself recognizes the importance of this U.N. humanitarian aid and has long supported it.
Today, in the midst of this horrific crisis, the United States and the international community are working to secure humanitarian access-- and from media reports I have seen recently, we may be making some progress on that--so that the U.N. can get food and water and fuel and medicine to the million or more people in Gaza who need essential supplies. That should be our focus. There are people now facing hunger, they are facing incredible desperation, and we cannot-- cannot--turn our backs on them.
If you think this is going to be good for Israel, if you think that the suffering of the Palestinian people long term is good for Israel, I think you are sorely mistaken.
The world is looking at us, and the world understands that what Hamas did was terrible, but they don't want to see our great country turn its back on innocent women and children. That, in my view, is not what this country is about.
This is a tough issue. There have been four wars there in the last 15 years. It ain't going to be solved tomorrow. But while we do our best to support Israel and destroy Hamas, please, let us not turn our backs on the suffering people in Gaza.
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Mr. SANDERS. The thing is that hundreds of thousands of women and children are living in desperation today. And nobody in the world can guarantee that a bottle of water may not go to somebody connected to Hamas. If you are insistent upon that, what you are really saying is, no money for Gaza.
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