Letter: An Open Letter to US Senator Bernie Sanders

November 19, 2024

I read that you are sponsoring a bill tomorrow in the United States Senate intending to restrict the transfer of weapons to Israel.

I understand that you believe too many Arab civilian lives have been sacrificed in this war, that there has been too much destruction, that the humanitarian harm overwhelms Israel’s right to defend itself against the evils done to Israeli civilians on October 7 2023, and before, and the potential violence to Israeli civilians in the future if Hamas is allowed to survive this war.

I respectfully disagree. I respectfully ask you to withdraw your resolution.

I am of your age and grew up with liberal values. I went to UC Berkeley for college and professional/graduate school. I marched against our American war in Vietnam. I believe in civil rights, women’s rights, and I value universal health care.

But I also know that Israel is not a colonist apartheid state. That both Jews and Arabs have legitimate claims to be indigenous peoples of this small sliver of land. That Zahal (the IDF) is a people’s army. That Israel is defending itself in a religious war not just against Hamas and Hezbollah but really with the Islamic Republic of Iran. I know that unless Israel wins this war against Hamas there will be more pogroms like October 7 because that is Iran’s plan. I know that the propaganda you use to support your narrative for how Zahal is fighting this war originates in Teheran and not in reality. I know that many of the NGOs you rely upon for your facts and figures (like the UN and many of its organs) are in reality corrupted and compromised – with the exact goal of empowering you and your like-minded colleagues to reach these conclusions. And I know that you have no ability to affect in any way the arms going to Hamas and Hezbollah from Iran and Russia and North Korea when you try to strip the IDF of its ability to defend Israel.

Now I also know the Arab population of Gaza is suffering. But the main architect of their pain and mortality is not Israel, it is Hamas and Iran. Deliberately so.

And I also believe something else (and here is where I really differ from you, Senator). If you and your colleagues were to succeed, the end result would not only be fewer Arab casualties but many more dead Jews. And after two millennia of exile, of pogroms, of murder and suffering, I do not believe that is a reasonable outcome.

So if you want to, go ahead and sanction any Jewish inhabitants of Judea and Samaria who are violent against their Arab neighbors (and vice versa). I believe that the final status of Judea and Samaria should be settled by negotiation when reasonable negotiations over those disputed, not occupied, lands are possible (maybe in another reality or the distant future). Go ahead and sanction Benjamin Netanyahu If you can. He is no angel and has made many mistakes that have cost lives, both Arab and Israeli. And if you want, we could have that moral discussion about what should be done in war – although when we do you should also recall that our Allied forces killed 20,000 French civilians invading Europe on D Day, and Harry S Truman chose to sacrifice another 200,000 Japanese civilians by nuclear bombs to save a million American and Allied casualties to end World War II. But when we have these discussions please also bear in mind that had the Allies not invaded Normandy, and had you and your family (or me and my family) remained in eastern Europe instead of emigrating to this country, the Nazis would have killed us all without a second moral thought.

So I fully support the IDF. I want Israel to have all the weapons it needs to defend the Jews, Christians, Druze, and Moslems who live in ha’aretz. I want Israel to prevail over Hamas, and Hezbollah, and Iran. And I hope someday, when the Arabs who choose to call themselves Palestinians without understanding that the very name they use was given to this land (to replace Judea) by the Romans when they practiced ethnic cleansing and built their coliseum in Rome from the spoils they looted from our conquered Herodian Temple – I hope that the day will come when, as Golda Meir said, “they love their children more than they hate us” and we all live together in peace.

Am Israel Chai.

Barry A Zwang-Weissman
Los Angeles CA