Senator Bernie Sanders, who is nominally Jewish but has a long history of attacking the Jewish state of Israel, wants to take some of the funding the United States gives to Israel for military assistance and give it to the Palestinians in Gaza, where the terrorist group Hamas rules, The Times of Israel reports.
Speaking at the national conference of the notoriously anti-Israel J Street organization, and interviewed by former Obama officials Ben Rhodes and Tommy Vietor, both of whom supported the Iran nuclear deal that represented an existential threat to Israel, Sanders curried favor by suggesting that Israel did not respect human rights, snapping, “I would use the leverage of $3.8 billion. It is a lot of money, and we cannot give it carte blanche to the Israeli government, or for that matter to any government at all.
We have a right to demand respect for human rights and democracy.” He threatened, “My solution is, to Israel, if you want military aid you’re going to have to fundamentally change your relationship to the people of Gaza. I would say that some of the $3.8 billion should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza.”
Sanders boasted, “My proposal in terms of Israeli-Palestinian efforts is not a radical proposal. All it says is that we need an even-hand proposal for both people. What is going on in Gaza right now, for example, is absolutely inhumane. It is unacceptable. It is unsustainable.”
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, a champion for the State of Israel, crushed Sanders on Twitter:
Just when you thought Bernie Sanders couldn’t get any more radical, he outdid himself. He wants to take money we give to Israel to defend itself from terrorists, and give it to Gaza, which is run by terrorists?? Unreal. Why isn’t every other Dem pres candidate saying he’s wrong?
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) October 29, 2019
Sanders pilloried President Trump and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he said venomously, “You’re looking at leaders, one is going to be impeached, the other one may end up in jail, so I don’t know how much credibility they have, actually in terms of integrity.”
Sanders, who has embraced notorious anti-Israel Linda Sarsour as an advocate for his campaign, said audaciously, “I am very proud to be Jewish and look forward to being the first Jewish president. I spent many months on a kibbutz in Israel. I believe absolutely not only in the right of Israel to exist but the right to exist in peace and security. That’s not a question. But what I also believe is the Palestinian people have a right to live in peace and security as well. It is not anti-Semitism to say that Netanyahu’s government has been racist.”
As Mosaic Magazine noted last April:
When Sanders wanted to win the Democratic nomination in 2016, he claimed that Israel had killed over 10,000 innocent Palestinians, launched indiscriminate attacks in the Gaza Strip, and shelled hospitals in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
The senator not only inflated the numbers by several orders of magnitude, he even outdid the Hamas spokespersons in creating a false narrative that the IDF was intentionally attacking the civilian population.
In the last week, Sanders’ presidential campaign selected supposed comedian and University of Detroit Mercy School of Law Professor Amer Zahr as an official campaigner; As Israel Hayom noted, Zahr, a supporter of the anti-Israel BDS movement, has written that Israel is a “nation that has routinely discriminated against black individuals, destroying blood donated by Ethiopian Jews, injecting their women with contraceptives without their consent, and expelling thousands of African asylum-seekers.”
Democratic Majority for Israel president and CEO Mark Mellman stated, “We privately communicated our concern about some of his choices directly to Sen. Sanders, beginning with his naming of noted anti-Semite Linda Sarsout as an official surrogate. Unfortunately, the only responses we have received from the senator are more hostile choices on his part.”
