Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon slammed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, on Sunday for saying recently that a portion of the U.S. military assistance to Israel should go towards humanitarian relief in the Gaza Strip.
“Mr. Sanders, a few months on a kibbutz in 1963 can only teach you so much,” said Danon at the annual Zionist Organization of America gala in New York, referring to the candidate having lived on an Israeli commune at the time.
“Perhaps Mr. Sanders didn’t hear about Israel leaving Gaza in 2005,” he added. “Maybe he hasn’t had the chance to visit the Kerem Shalom crossing, where hundreds of trucks pass daily to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza. Maybe he doesn’t know about the terror tunnels.”
The Gaza Strip has been under control by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas since 2007, when it overthrew the Palestinian Authority. Israel has permitted international humanitarian aid transfers to the Gaza Strip, including from Arab countries such as Qatar.
At the J Street Conference last month in Washington, D.C., Sanders said, “I would use the leverage of $3.8 billion,” 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.”
He added that the annual U.S. assistance to the Jewish state should “go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza.”
The senator “is suggesting to give less military assistance to the United States’ most important ally in the Middle East in order to give it to Hamas, a terrorist organization that celebrated the tragedy of 9/11,” said Danon.
“Let me assure you my friends, we will never let that happen,” he told the audience. “We will fight against these radical voices.”
