Sen. Chris Coons is paid $258,166 by AIPAC and other pro-Israel lobby groups to be a staunch supporter of Israel. This bribery has undoubtedly shaped his legislative decisions, which work to advance Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Coons has said some variation of this phrase: “I am deeply committed to ensuring that the United States continues to support Israel’s security, its right to defend itself, and the U.S.-Israel relationship,” in interviews, speeches, and public statements consistently throughout his career. Coons talks about Israel so much you’d think he’s being paid to do it (he is)!
Controlled Chris has been under the pro-Israel lobby’s influence for some time, having promoted bipartisan support for Israel at an AIPAC conference in 2018, where he blatantly admitted, “that’s where you come in,” when asked how to ensure bipartisan support for Israel by an AIPAC representative. Coons then weaponized this value for bipartisanship to manufacture support for the $95 billion supplementary funding bill, which passed in April 2024. The $14 billion awarded to Israel was ultimately used to murder more innocent lives in Gaza.
In a Senate floor speech, Coons recounted how he personally justified the bombing of Gaza in a conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu,
“What I said to the Prime Minister was, you don’t just have the right to defend the Israeli people against Hamas; you have the obligation…You have to go after them. You have to finish the job. You have to go into Rafah and go after these four remaining battalions, and you have to secure Gaza and make certain that Hamas does not reemerge as a fighting force that can ever threaten Israel again…provide a pathway for civilians to leave Rafah before you go in at scale – with a bombing campaign, a ground campaign – to minimize civilian injuries and deaths. If there are 10,000 or so Hamas fighters remaining in Rafah, and if the multiplier, to use a crass term, has been two to one civilian deaths for every Hamas fighter killed, to contemplate 20 or 30,000 more civilian deaths in Rafah is to contemplate a horrifying outcome.”
The pro-Israel lobby pays Chris Coons to be complicit in genocide.
Related Links
Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential, The Lancet, July 2024
Gaza infrastructure damages estimated at $18.5bn in UN-World Bank report, Al Jazeera News, April 2024
Senator Coon affirms U.S. commitment to Israel, Chris Coons Gov., May 2024.
Support for supplementary funding, X, November 2023.
AIPAC conference, X, March 2018.
