Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday he doesn’t know that a ceasefire is possible in the Israel-Hamas war with “an organization like Hamas” involved.
“I don’t know how you can have a ceasefire, (a) permanent ceasefire, with an organization like Hamas, which is dedicated to turmoil and chaos and destroying the state of Israel,” Sanders told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” Sunday.
Quite disappointed with Sen. Sanders on this one considering his general stance. Barack Obama had a better understanding here:
How about Israel stop bombing civilians so that Hamas doesn’t get new recruits? Does it really not occur to them that 7000+ civilians killed is going to radicalize more youth. Especially since Gaza’s demographic is mostly youngsters due to past conflicts killing off those who survive for longer.
It’s quite clear that in this conflict, the following people have all the gain: Netanyahu who wants to prolong the war to keep corruption charges and an ouster at bay, by winning favor with Israel conservative fundamentalists; Hamas who successfully intervened when relations were about to be mended with the Saudis, Israel, and a few other countries; Putin, whom the U.S is funding against in the conflict with Ukraine; U.S. war manufacturers that supply the missiles to Israel.
Edit: Fixed some typos and an incorrect negation
Edit2: It’s been pointed out to me that there was a wild misrepresentation of what Sanders said. My faith is restored. Thankfully it was I who foolishly fell for this clickbait.
If you ever read a headline about Bernie and are disappointed in what he said, it’s a pretty good chance he said some other stuff too that got left out.
Just because the headline doesn’t have him also criticizing Netanyahu, doesn’t mean he’s suddenly supporting him.
Agree with you. I was browsing when out on a weekend and fell for the clickbait.
The problem with his idea is that Hamas actively refuses the two state solution and has been doing so violently for decades. That’s their whole thing.
And then you’ve got Netanyahu on the other side. Which… You know
I mean at this point the two state solution is entirely a political fiction. Bibi has seen to it with his support of the settlers in WB.
Only shot now is to fold in everyone and turn it into the Confederation of Jerusalem. Expose the extremists of both sides to electoral accountability from the tired masses they try to demonize now that they’re voting members of the public too.
The PLO called for the elimination of Israel as well. That changed after the first intifada and it’s the closest we’ve ever been to peace. This is a different and much more fraught situation, though. I don’t expect conciliation on the part of Hamas after this.
The CNN article seems to be cherry-picking his statements. This is his op-ed on the topic which is much more in-depth:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/01/gaza-humanitarian-pause-bernie-sanders
Yeah you need to actually read what he said.
Gaza doesn’t have a young population because the old people died in fighting, Gaza has a young population because its birth rate is insane.
I mean, at this point, just stopping the bombing isn’t going to stop giving Hamas recruits, because people will remember the bombings and other things already done, and will remember for a long time, and Hamas is certainly going to milk them for all they can get. Continuing the bombing makes things much worse of course, but just stopping by itself isn’t all that’s needed for peace, just the start. Which is what I suspect he’s getting at based on some of the context other people have replied, a cease-fire that just returns things to how they were before the current elevated level of conflict isn’t viable, because the same conditions would exist that led to what is going on now, and so it would just happen again sometime later.