Time to worry about violence in Gaza, not on American college campuses: US Senator

By Diyar Guldogan

WASHINGTON (AA) - US Senator Bernie Sanders said Wednesday that attention should be focused on Israel’s ongoing war in the Gaza Strip rather than pro-Palestinian protests across US college campuses.

"It is time to not simply worry about the violence we are seeing on American college campuses but to focus on the unprecedented violence we are seeing in Gaza, which has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000, 70% of whom are women and children," Sanders said on the Senate floor.

His remarks came as student protests over the Israel-Hamas war have spread to many college campuses after being inspired by demonstrators at New York's Columbia University.

Hundreds of students have been arrested on campuses, with protests demanding universities divest from Israel and condemning the war on the besieged enclave.

"I suggest that CNN and maybe some of my colleagues here maybe take your cameras, just for a moment, off Columbia and off UCLA (the University of California, Los Angeles). Maybe go to Gaza and take your cameras and show us the emaciated children who are dying from malnutrition because of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu's policies," Sanders said.

"Show us the kids who have lost their arms and their legs. Show us the suffering that is going on over there," he added.

Turning to the protests across US college campuses, Sanders said he condemns all forms of violence, whether it is committed by people who support Israel's war policies or by people who oppose those policies, adding that all forms of bigotry in the US must be condemned and eliminated.

"We are seeing a growth of antisemitism in this country, which we must all condemn and work to stop. We are also seeing a growth of Islamophobia in this country, which we must all condemn and stop," he added.

Sanders reiterated that it is "not antisemitic" to hold Netanyahu and his government accountable for their actions.

More than 34,500 Palestinians have been killed and 77,700 injured in a brutal Israeli offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

Israel has imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which in January issued an interim ruling that ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.