Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley criticized Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday for proposing to divert some of the United States’ military aid to Israel towards humanitarian relief in the Gaza Strip.
“Just when you thought Bernie Sanders couldn’t get any more radical, he outdid himself,” Haley wrote on Twitter. “He wants to take money we give to Israel to defend itself from terrorists, and give it to Gaza, which is run by terrorists?? Unreal. Why isn’t every other Dem pres candidate saying he’s wrong?”
Speaking at the annual J Street conference in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Sanders said the Netanyahu government was “racist,” and that to say so was not anti-Semitic.
“It is not anti-Semitism to say that the Netanyahu government has been racist. That’s a fact.”
“I would use the leverage of $3.8 billion,” said Sanders, referring to the 10-year Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Israel negotiated by former President Barack Obama. “It is a lot of money, and we cannot give it, carte blanche, to the Israeli government, or for that matter, to any government at all. We have a right to demand respect for human rights and democracy.”