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Senator Bob Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee seen as a reliably pro-Israel Democratic voice, said Saturday he was "deeply troubled" by Israeli strikes on Gaza that killed civilians and destroyed media offices, calling for "a full accounting."
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Senator Bernie Sanders, Biden's main challenger from the left for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, has called the devastation "unconscionable" and, in a threat once taboo in Washington, said Sunday that the United States should take a "hard look" at the nearly $4 billion in military aid it provides each year to Israel.
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In a New York Times opinion piece, Sanders wrote that Netanyahu has "cultivated an increasingly intolerant and authoritarian type of racist nationalism" and ended with the line: "Palestinian lives matter."
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Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the highest-profile progressive Democrats, urged action against Israeli "apartheid" -- a term that infuriates Israel but was recently backed by Human Rights Watch, which said it was government policy to maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians.
"The president and many other figures this week stated that Israel has a right to self-defense," Ocasio-Cortez said on the House floor Thursday. "But do Palestinians have a right to survive? Do we believe that? And if so, we have a responsibility to that."
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Logan Bayroff of J Street, a progressive pro-Israel group, said there was a growing recognition that Israeli actions including moves to evict Palestinian families in east Jerusalem contributed to the crisis.
"You're seeing much more willingness across a wide spectrum of the Democratic Party to criticize not just Hamas rockets -- and Hamas is involved in this -- but also Israeli government policy," said Bayroff, the group's vice president of communications. "That forms a pretty strong contrast with how the Biden administration unfortunately seems to be on a different page in a way that frankly has not been adequate to the severity of the crisis," he said.
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Americans overwhelmingly still see Israel positively, according to a Gallup survey in February, but 34 percent called for more pressure on Israel to resolve the conflict, the highest since the question was asked in 2007. In a Pew poll this year, more than half of American Jews gave negative marks to Netanyahu and nearly two-thirds voiced optimism about coexistence with a Palestinian state.
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Senator Bernie Sanders, Biden's main challenger from the left for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, has called the devastation "unconscionable" and, in a threat once taboo in Washington, said Sunday that the United States should take a "hard look" at the nearly $4 billion in military aid it provides each year to Israel.
---------
In a New York Times opinion piece, Sanders wrote that Netanyahu has "cultivated an increasingly intolerant and authoritarian type of racist nationalism" and ended with the line: "Palestinian lives matter."
---------
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the highest-profile progressive Democrats, urged action against Israeli "apartheid" -- a term that infuriates Israel but was recently backed by Human Rights Watch, which said it was government policy to maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians.
"The president and many other figures this week stated that Israel has a right to self-defense," Ocasio-Cortez said on the House floor Thursday. "But do Palestinians have a right to survive? Do we believe that? And if so, we have a responsibility to that."
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Logan Bayroff of J Street, a progressive pro-Israel group, said there was a growing recognition that Israeli actions including moves to evict Palestinian families in east Jerusalem contributed to the crisis.
"You're seeing much more willingness across a wide spectrum of the Democratic Party to criticize not just Hamas rockets -- and Hamas is involved in this -- but also Israeli government policy," said Bayroff, the group's vice president of communications. "That forms a pretty strong contrast with how the Biden administration unfortunately seems to be on a different page in a way that frankly has not been adequate to the severity of the crisis," he said.
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Americans overwhelmingly still see Israel positively, according to a Gallup survey in February, but 34 percent called for more pressure on Israel to resolve the conflict, the highest since the question was asked in 2007. In a Pew poll this year, more than half of American Jews gave negative marks to Netanyahu and nearly two-thirds voiced optimism about coexistence with a Palestinian state.