Bernie Sanders, 82, announces run for a fourth Senate term

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Bernie Sanders, the two-time presidential candidate and leading progressive senator, has announced he will run for a fourth term.

Sanders, 82, an independent from Vermont, made history in 2016 as the first Jewish candidate to win a major party’s presidential primary, and ran again in 2020. In both primaries, he finished in second to the Democratic nominee. He is considered the de-facto leader of progressives in the Senate.

In an eight-minute campaign launch speech posted online Monday, Sanders called to suspend U.S. military aid to Israel during the war. He has been among the most prominent critics of Israel’s conduct in its war against Hamas in Gaza, although he has also drawn criticism from some on the left for not condemning Israel more harshly.

“On Oct. 7th, 2023, Hamas – a terrorist organization – began the war in Gaza with a horrific attack on Israel that killed 1,200 men, women, and children and took more than 230 hostages, some of whom remain in captivity today,” Sanders said in the video. “Israel had the absolute right to defend itself against this terrorist attack, but it did not and does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people, which is exactly what it is doing.”

Sanders, who spent months in his youth on an Israeli kibbutz, has framed his criticism of Israel around the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

“According to humanitarian organizations, famine and starvation are now imminent,” Sanders said. “In my view, U.S. tax dollars should not be going to the extremist Netanyahu government to continue its devastating war against the Palestinian people.”

Also on Monday, in a separate post, Sanders expressed alarm at Israeli plans to invade Rafah, the last major redoubt of Hamas in Gaza, where more than a million Palestinians have sought refuge.

“For months, the U.S. has warned against an attack,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Netanyahu ignored the warnings. Now an assault is imminent. It will kill countless civilians. President Biden must back his words with action. End all offensive military aid to Israel.”

Sanders’ announcement video is otherwise focused on the services he says he has provided his state, including expanded health care and flood relief, although he touches on national issues including reproductive rights. He concluded the video by saying, like other Democrats, that this year’s election is a test for democracy, an allusion to the prospects that former President Donald Trump could return to office. He also said more needs to be done on causes that he has championed, including wealth inequality and campaign finance.

“Will the United States continue to even function as a democracy, or will we move to an authoritarian form of government?” Sanders says.  “Will we reverse the unprecedented level of income and wealth inequality that now exists, or will we continue to see billionaires get richer while working families struggle to put food on the table? Can we create a government that works for all of us, or will our political system continue to be dominated by wealthy campaign contributors?”

Sanders did not mention his age in the video.

The other Vermont senator, Democrat Peter Welch, has also taken a lead in criticism of Israel’s war conduct, as has the state’s sole member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Becca Balint, a Jewish Democrat.