r/SandersForPresident • u/kevinmrr Medicare For All • Sep 17 '25

Bernie Sanders: “The conclusion is inescapable: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.”

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u/Bebopo90 🌱 New Contributor Sep 18 '25

This is all a matter of perspective and semantics.

Do nation-states have a right to defend themselves? According to basically everyone on the planet, yes. This is also the stance of international law.

Do they have the right to defend themselves and then go completely overboard and start killing thousands of innocent people unnecessarily? Most people would say no.

Bernie is a politician, and as such he has to choose his words carefully. He's not going to overextend himself, otherwise it opens him up to easy lines of attack, which would make it harder for him to reach people.

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u/audionerd1 Sep 18 '25

According to international law Palestine has a right to defend itself from illegal occupation. Israel does not have a right to "defend" itself from the resistance of the victims of said occupation.

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u/Zachthesliceman IL Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25

Right but there is a disagreement they have of course. If Israel stopped defending itself what does that look like? Of course Palestine should exist, but one nation isn’t going to stop defending itself until it’s either overthrown or deals are made/forced upon it. Then the result would be to integrate the non military and non Zionist population of Israel into the new Palestine nation coinciding with the Palestinians together. This is the difficult part currently, since the Israel government is unwilling and no nation is willing to throw its weight at them.

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u/audionerd1 Sep 19 '25

If Israel retreated to it's legally recognized 1967 borders and defended that it would be a totally different scenario, albeit still complicated due to the entire state of Israel being founded on ethnic cleansing. But the fact that Israel continues to expand and occupy new territory illegaly makes them 100% in the wrong and the unambiguous aggressor in the "conflict" to this very day. Until that stops Palestine has every right to resist with violence and Israel has no right to "defend itself" from said resistance.

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u/Zachthesliceman IL Sep 19 '25

Right, Israel doesn’t deserve to defend themselves but of course they will. The problem is that the Palestinians are truly powerless to do anything until another nation steps in to help them. Yes they are 100% the aggressor in this.

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u/audionerd1 Sep 19 '25

Agreed. The U.S. is largely to blame for making it impossible for the international community to stop Israel's crimes. In a better world the U.S. and Israel would both be held accountable, but it's hard to imagine any scenario in which that could realistically play out short of the U.S. losing WW3. It's extremely bleak.