Israeli Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein slammed Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders for suggesting that U.S. military aid to Israel should be diverted toward humanitarian needs in the Gaza Strip. Likud MK Edelstein said that Sanders should “stop talking nonsense,” adding that the Vermont senator’s assertion that Israel was responsible for conditions in Gaza was “absurd” in a tweet on Tuesday.
Edelstein, a senior member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, was responding to remarks that Sanders made at the J Street conference on Monday. The Vermon senator had suggested that the $3.8 billion dollars in U.S. military assistance to Israel could be “leveraged” to pressure Israel to move towards a two-state solution, and that he believed aid should instead be put towards improving living conditions for Palestinians in Gaza “right now.”