The White House News

Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., slammed Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., over his call to make Israeli aid conditional on its actions in Gaza, as the tensions in the Middle East continue to push a wedge between Democrats in the U.S.

Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats, released a statement over the weekend urging President Biden to force Israel into curbing its West Bank settlements and pledging no long-term blockade of Gaza before the U.S. releases aid dollars.

Moskowitz pledged that he would work to remove those conditions from the legislation if it was sent to the House of Representatives or force stricter measures on aid to Gaza. 

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“I am absolutely for humanitarian aid to Gaza. But if Bernie Sanders puts political requirements on the Aid to Israel, I will work in the House to remove those conditions or condition Aid to Gaza that requires the removal of Hamas,” Moskowitz wrote on X over the weekend. Both Moskowitz and Sanders are Jewish.

“Let’s not play this game. Send the aid to both,” Moskowitz added.

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Hamas militants infiltrated southern Israel on Oct. 7, brutally killing roughly 1,400 people – mainly civilians. 

Israel has responded with force, bombarding Gaza and waging an armed ground invasion. The Hamas-controlled Gazan government said over the weekend that the region’s death toll has reached 13,000 since Oct. 7.

The subject of Israel has exacerbated divisions within the Democratic Party, particularly between new progressives and the left-wing establishment.

More than 20 hardline-left Democratic lawmakers broke from their party to vote against a resolution condemning antisemitism and support for Hamas on school campuses earlier this month. A similar number of moderate Democrats later joined Republicans to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the only Palestinian-American in Congress, over her statements about the war. 

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“The Netanyahu government, or hopefully a new Israeli government, must understand that not one penny will be coming to Israel from the U.S. unless there is a fundamental change in their military and political positions,” Sanders wrote on X over the weekend.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., backed up the call for conditional aid. “Conditioning aid to Israel, as we do with virtually all other US allies, is a responsible course of action,” she wrote on the platform.

“The United States has a legal and moral responsibility to ensure that public resources do not facilitate gross violations of human rights and international law,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker appeared to take a page out of the White House’s playbook in likening GOP front-runner and former President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini over his use of the term “vermin” to describe his political enemies ahead of the 2024 presidential election. 

The Democrat, one of the leading Jewish governors in the country, told MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki,” Trump’s comment is “just one in a long series of remarks, words that Donald Trump has used that are unfortunately reminiscent of the past. Let me just be clear, in Germany, in the 1930s, people that they didn’t want to have power, people that they wanted to separate, segregate. They began calling them immigrants, even people who had been in Germany for generations.” 

“Jews who were doctors, lawyers in government at the time became known as immigrants, even though they were German. And this is a way to begin to segregate people, and then eventually, at least what happened in Germany, is that they turned it into a way to almost dehumanize. And then they did in fact dehumanize and kill people,” Pritzker said. “I don’t know where it’s going with Donald Trump. What I can tell you is the things that he talks about are frightening to those of us who know the history of Europe in the 1930s and 40s. And I’m deeply concerned about his predilection for revenge.” 

During a speech in Claremont, New Hampshire, ahead of Veterans Day last week, Trump vowed, “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections.” 

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“They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream,” Trump said. “The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within. Because if you have a capable, competent, smart, tough leader, Russia, China, North Korea, they’re not going to want to play with us.”

Trump, recently endorsed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott at the U.S.-Mexico border, has repeatedly warned that President Biden is leading the globe to the brink of a third World War. 

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The Washington Post condemned the use of the term “vermin,” saying historians sounded the alarm over concerns of it echoing authoritarianism. 

The White House also condemned Trump’s comment last week. 

“Employing words like ‘vermin’ to describe anyone who makes use of their basic right to criticize the government ‘echoes dictators’ like Hitler and Mussolini,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told reporters, quoting the Post’s coverage. “Using terms like that about dissent would be unrecognizable to our founders, but horrifyingly recognizable to American veterans who put on their country’s uniform in the 1940s. President Biden believes in his oath to our constitution, and in American democracy. He works to protect both every day.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Trump campaign for comment Monday, but they did not immediately respond.