Sen. Bernie Sanders took to Twitter to respond to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that criticism of Israel's war in Gaza equates to antisemitism.
On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the pro-Palestinian protests taking place at universities across the United States as "horrific" and emphasized the need to halt such demonstrations, labeling participating students as antisemitic.
"Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities," claimed Netanyahu in his statement.
"They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty," he added.
Sanders addressed the prime minister's remarks in a statement on Thursday.
"It is not antisemitic to hold Mr. Netanyahu accountable for his actions in his horrific war against the Palestinian people," Sanders wrote. "No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months, your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000 people-seventy percent of whom are women and children," it read.
Sanders referenced the destruction of more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza that has left more than one million people homeless, saying that "it is not antisemitic to note that in the process of waging war with Hamas, Israel's government has obliterated Gaza's civilian infrastructure, including electricity, water, and sewage.:
"It's also not antisemitic to agree with virtually every humanitarian organization in saying that your government, in violation of American law, has unreasonably blocked humanitarian aid coming into Gaza, creating the conditions in which hundreds of thousands of children face malnutrition and famine," he continued.
