Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Monday delivered a broadside to Senate Democrats who in recent days have justified the Hamas rockets fired against Israel.
McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, accused Democrats in a floor speech of “pushing the false narrative that this conflict is a tragic dispute between two legitimate combatants where both sides share blame, but is roughly equal.”
BERNIE SANDERS SAYS US SHOULD RECONSIDER FOREIGN AID TO ISRAEL, WHICH PARTIALLY FUNDS DEFENSE SYSTEM
McConnell called such a view “nonsense” and “an obscene moral equivalence.”
Top Republicans in recent days have vocally backed Israel’s right to defend itself against a barrage of Hamas rocket attacks that began last week.
Israel’s retaliatory missile strikes have since then killed hundreds in the Gaza Strip, including children.
A group of 30 Democrats Monday called for a ceasefire. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, has also expressed support for a ceasefire.
Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, called the ceasefire demand, “tantamount to Hamas propaganda,” adding, “Both sides are not the same in this conflict, no matter what the Democrats naively imply.”
Schumer’s counterpart in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, put out a statement backing Israel’s right to defend itself “against indiscriminate rocket attacks.”
But some in the progressive wing of the party are blaming Israel, even though Hamas was the first to launch rockets.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, called on the Biden administration to communicate to Israel that pushing Palestinians from their homes is “illegal and must stop immediately.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent and socialist who caucuses with Senate Democrats, tweeted, “The United States must speak out strongly against the violence by government-allied Israeli extremists in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and make clear that the evictions of Palestinian families must not go forward.”
McConnell called on Biden to defy Democrats who refuse to take Israel’s side in the conflict.
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“The United States needs to stand foursquare behind our ally, and President Biden must remain strong against the growing voices within his own party that create false equivalence between terrorist aggressors and a responsible state defending itself,” McConnell said.
Cotton called on Biden to cut off funding to the Palestinian authority until it could be assured none of the money would be spent on funding rockets aimed against Israel.
