(JTA) – U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said the United States is “complicit” in Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. “[B]ut that is not to say … that Israel is the only party at fault,” Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, said in an interview with The Intercept news website published Friday evening. Sanders also said that “in terms of Israeli-Palestinian relations the United States has got to play a much more even-handed role. Clearly that is not the case right now.” In answer to a specific question from reporter Mehdi Hasan, Sanders said he would consider voting to reduce the United States’ annual $3 billion in aid to Israel or reduce U.S. arms sales to the Israeli military. “I would love to see people in the Middle East sit down with the United States government and figure out how U.S. aid can bring people together, not just result in an arms war in that area. So I think there is extraordinary potential for the United States to help the Palestinian people rebuild Gaza and other areas. At the same time, demand that Israel, in their own interests in a way, work with other countries on environmental issues.”

Sanders in a speech on Thursday at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri, defended the Iran nuclear deal signed by the Obama administration in 2015. “We must protect this deal,” Sanders said