As the devastation in Gaza continues, a prominent American senator asks whether US taxpayers can remain complicit in a war fought with American weapons
By Mohamed Atherulla Shariff
For nearly three years, Gaza has remained a test not only of Israel’s conduct of war but also of the world’s political conscience. Few questions are more uncomfortable for Washington than the one increasingly being raised by Senator Bernie Sanders: what responsibility does the United States bear for the destruction of Gaza when American weapons, money and diplomatic support have played a major role in sustaining Israel’s military campaign?
Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont and one of the most prominent critics of unconditional US support for Israel, have repeatedly put that question before Congress and the American public.
His language has become increasingly direct. In April 2026, Sanders wrote that the time had come for Congress to end US military aid to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. He argued that Israel had the right to respond to the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, but not to wage what he described as an unlawful war of enormous destruction against the Palestinian population. He called for congressional action to block the sale of American bombs and bulldozers to Israel.
In July, Sanders went further. Speaking in Minnesota, he said Israel did not have the right to commit genocide in Gaza and argued that Netanyahu’s government should receive no more money from American taxpayers. He cited the enormous Palestinian death toll, the destruction of housing and the devastation of Gaza’s schools, hospitals, water systems and electricity infrastructure.
These are extraordinarily strong words from an American senator. But their significance lies not merely in the language. Sanders is challenging the political assumption that the United States can simultaneously claim to support international law and human rights while continuing to supply weapons to a government accused of grave violations of those principles.
The American Connection to Gaza
The Gaza war is often presented in American political debate as a conflict taking place thousands of miles away. Sanders’s argument turns the question around. It is not simply a foreign war, he says. It is also an American policy issue.
In a Senate floor speech on Gaza, Sanders pointed to the extensive use of American-made bombs and artillery by the Israeli military. He cited reporting that the United States had supplied thousands of bombs and artillery shells after October 7, 2023, including large 2,000-pound bombs. He argued that these weapons were being used in one of the world’s most densely populated areas and warned that their use against civilians could violate US law and policy.
In July 2025, Sanders made the same argument even more bluntly, saying that American taxpayers could not ignore the consequences of the weapons supplied to Israel. His statement referred to the starvation crisis in Gaza and to the large number of Palestinians killed or wounded during the war. The argument is therefore about more than Israel. It is about the United States’ own responsibility for the consequences of its foreign-policy decisions.
A War Fought with American Weapons
The proposed US weapons package reported in September 2026 illustrates why the issue remains politically relevant. According to Reuters, the Trump administration is planning a $2.8 billion munitions sale to Israel, including 40,000 2,000-pound bombs – 20,000 MK-84s and 20,000 BLU-117s. The proposal has been communicated to congressional committees responsible for reviewing major arms sales. Reuters also reported that similar munitions have been used by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon and have attracted scrutiny from human-rights experts because of their destructive potential in densely populated areas.
Sanders responded by calling on Congress to stop the proposed sale, arguing that American taxpayers should not finance Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
The significance of this latest controversy lies in the nature of the weapons involved. A 2,000-pound bomb is not a small battlefield weapon. When such munitions are used in densely populated civilian areas, the distinction between attacking a military target and causing devastating civilian harm becomes a matter of enormous concern. That is why the question of arms transfers cannot be separated from the humanitarian consequences of the war.
The Scale of Destruction
The devastation in Gaza has been extraordinary. The scale of destruction has extended far beyond the loss of life. Sanders has pointed to the destruction of housing, hospitals, schools, universities, water and sewage systems and electricity infrastructure. In his April article, he cited figures indicating that more than 90 per cent of Gaza’s housing units had been damaged or destroyed and that the overwhelming majority of the population had been displaced. The humanitarian consequences are therefore not confined to those killed in individual air strikes.
A society whose hospitals are destroyed, whose homes have disappeared, whose water infrastructure is damaged and whose educational institutions have been devastated faces a crisis extending across generations.
Sanders Challenges Washington’s Political Consensus
Perhaps the most important element of Sanders’s intervention is that he is challenging a longstanding feature of American foreign policy. For decades, Israel has enjoyed strong bipartisan support in Washington. Although criticism of particular Israeli governments has existed within both parties, the basic commitment to military and diplomatic support for Israel has remained strong. The Gaza war has changed the political debate.
Sanders’s resolutions seeking to block specific weapons sales have attracted growing support among Democratic Senators, although his efforts have not succeeded in stopping the sales. In April 2026, the Senate rejected his attempt to advance resolutions blocking the sale of approximately $446.8 million in weapons and equipment, including bombs and Caterpillar bulldozers.
The voting itself is revealing. It shows that opposition to particular arms transfers has moved from the margins of American politics into the Senate chamber, while also demonstrating that substantial support for Israel’s military relationship with the United States remains. The debate is therefore not settled. It is evolving.
‘Security’ and Accountability
Israel’s principal argument throughout the conflict has been that its military campaign is necessary to protect the country following the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, in which Israeli authorities reported about 1,200 people killed and more than 250 taken hostage. But Sanders’s argument is that recognising Israel’s right to security does not provide unlimited justification for the subsequent treatment of Gaza’s civilian population. This distinction is important.
A state’s right to defend its population does not automatically settle questions concerning proportionality, civilian protection, humanitarian access or the treatment of occupied or displaced populations. Those questions are governed by international humanitarian law and are subject to independent legal and institutional scrutiny. Sanders is essentially asking Washington to apply those principles to an ally as well as to its adversaries.
The Question of American Taxpayers
There is also an economic dimension to Sanders’s argument. American military assistance is ultimately a matter of public expenditure. When Washington authorises weapons transfers or provides military financing, the question is not merely what Israel wants or what its government considers necessary. It is also what American citizens are being asked to finance.
Sanders has repeatedly used this argument. His April 2026 article stated that American taxpayers should not continue funding the Netanyahu government’s military campaign. This argument has particular resonance at a time when the United States itself faces serious domestic challenges involving healthcare, housing, poverty and economic insecurity.
Sanders’s political question is therefore straightforward: should billions of dollars in public resources be devoted to a foreign military campaign when the consequences include mass civilian suffering? The answer is a matter for the American political system. But the question itself has become increasingly difficult to avoid.
A Changing American Debate
There are indications that American public opinion on Israel has changed since the beginning of the Gaza war. Reuters reported in September that a June 2026 Quinnipiac poll found that 48 per cent of voters and 66 per cent of Democrats believed the United States was too supportive of Israel. The corresponding figures when Quinnipiac first asked the question in 2017 were substantially lower.
Sanders has interpreted this changing public mood as evidence that American foreign policy is moving out of step with a significant section of the electorate. The question is therefore not simply whether American support exists. It is what conditions should accompany that support.
The Moral Cost of Unconditional Support
The most powerful aspect of Sanders’s intervention is its insistence that foreign policy cannot be separated from morality. Governments often speak in the language of strategic interests, deterrence, alliances and national security. These are legitimate considerations. But behind every military operation are human beings.
In Gaza, those human beings include children growing up amid destroyed homes and schools, families separated by displacement, patients unable to obtain adequate medical care and civilians living amid extraordinary uncertainty.
When weapons are supplied from Washington and used in Gaza, the chain of responsibility does not end at the Israeli border. This is the uncomfortable truth Sanders wants Americans to confront.
Beyond Sanders
Sanders’s position should not be understood merely as the personal view of one American politician. His interventions are part of a wider debate within American society over Israel, Palestine, US military assistance and the country’s role in the Middle East.
Other members of Congress have also begun questioning particular arms sales. In September, Representative Gregory Meeks, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced opposition to the proposed $2.8 billion munitions package, citing concerns about international law and the potential use of the weapons in densely populated areas.
At the same time, the Trump administration continues to pursue substantial military support for Israel. The result is an increasingly visible contradiction within American policy: growing criticism of Israel’s conduct on one side, and continuing military assistance on the other.
What does Washington Owe Gaza?
The most important question raised by Sanders is not whether he is right or wrong on every aspect of the conflict. It is whether the United States can claim to be an advocate of a rules-based international order while maintaining an arms relationship that critics say contributes to grave violations in Gaza.
If Washington believes international law matters, the principle must apply to allies as well as adversaries. If civilian protection matters, it cannot become secondary when the victims are Palestinians. And if American taxpayers are financing weapons used in a war, they have a legitimate democratic interest in asking how those weapons are being used.
The Gaza catastrophe has already altered the language of the American debate. A senator who once represented a marginal position on military aid to Israel is now speaking of genocide, American complicity and the responsibility of Congress to stop weapons transfers.
Whether Washington changes course remains a political question. But the moral question is harder to evade: When a powerful country supplies the weapons, money and diplomatic backing for a war, can it really claim to have no responsibility for what those weapons help produce? Bernie Sanders’s answer is increasingly clear. America cannot look away.
