NEW YORK, May 15 (APP):The United States must encourage an immediate cease-fire in the Middle East and adopt a more “even-handed” and morally consistent approach to Israel and Palestine that promotes peace, US Senator Bernier Sanders, a former presidential candidate, wrote in a leading American newspaper.
More than 125 Palestinians have been killed and many more injured after Israeli troops used brute force against escalating protests in East Jerusalem stemming from the eviction of Palestinians from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood.
In retaliation, Hamas, which rules Gaza, fired rockets and Israelis claim that seven people died in Israel.
Early in his opinion piece in The New York Times published on Saturday, Sanders, a leftist politician who is Jewish, posed a question: “Why do we only seem to take notice of the violence in Israel and Palestine when rockets are falling on Israel?”
“Whenever this happens, Sanders noted, Democratic and Republican administrations declare, as President Joe Biden did earlier this week, that “Israel has the right to defend itself.”
“Why is the question almost never asked: ‘What are the rights of the Palestinian people?'” Sanders added.
Senator Sanders, a Democrats, is the most prominent voice so far in support of Palestinian rights as the US media and politicians have been supporting Israel And its aggressive actions.
“While Hamas firing rockets into Israeli communities is absolutely unacceptable, today’s conflict did not begin with those rockets,” the senator said, adding Palestinians have spent years being threatened with forced evictions, political and economic oppression and deepening Israeli occupation.
“Further, we have seen [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu’s government work to marginalize and demonize Palestinian citizens of Israel” while pursuing policies “designed to foreclose the possibility of a two-state solution.”
“None of this excuses the attacks by Hamas, which were an attempt to exploit the unrest in Jerusalem, or the failures of the corrupt and ineffective Palestinian Authority,” Sanders noted.
“But the fact of the matter is that Israel remains the one sovereign authority in the land of Israel and Palestine, and rather than preparing for peace and justice, it has been entrenching its unequal and undemocratic control.”
The lawmaker emphasized that the U.S. must “uphold international standards of human rights consistently, even when it’s politically difficult.”
“Israel has the absolute right to live in peace and security,” the lawmaker wrote, “but so do the Palestinians. I strongly believe that the United States has a major role to play in helping Israelis and Palestinians to build that future.”
The senator proceeded to highlight just some of the recent steps taken by the Israeli government and settlers to violently oppress Palestinians living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
As examples, Sanders cited the forced expulsion of Palestinian families living in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem and elsewhere in the occupied West Bank as well as the ongoing blockade on Gaza that “makes life increasingly intolerable for Palestinians.”
“Israel’s violence has a clear purpose: ethnically cleanse Jerusalem of Palestinians to allow Israeli settlers t…
“In the Middle East, where we provide nearly $4 billion a year in aid to Israel, we can no longer be apologists for the right-wing Netanyahu government and its undemocratic and racist behavior.”
“If the United States is going to be a credible voice on human rights on the global stage,” he said, “we must uphold international standards of human rights consistently, even when it’s politically difficult.
“We must recognize that Palestinian rights matter. Palestinian lives matter,” Sanders added