In Bernie Sanders’ world, Israel is the fons et origo of America’s ills. It’s a nasty little Sparta, always causing or unnecessarily prolonging wars, unworthy of our support, and in America, its Jewish supporters are deplorably helping to move American politics rightward, as they did by supporting Donald Trump. Sanders uses his Jewish identity as a shield that allows him, he thinks, to get away with outrageous remarks about Israel. “Hey, I’m Jewish, so how can I be unfair to Israel?” For the answer to that, just point to Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein. More on Bernie Sanders, in aspect an upper-west-side schlemiel — with the vowels and consonants to prove it — who has made his mark as a Senator from Vermont, can be found here: “Why Does Bernie Sanders Feed Antisemitic Stereotypes?,” by Sheila Nazarian, Algemeiner, November 18, 2024:
Shortly after the presidential election, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders released a scathing statement blaming the Democrats for Trump’s victory.
Alongside a slew of criticisms of Democratic policies on healthcare and labor, Sanders tore into the party for their stance on the Israel-Hamas war, writing that “despite strong opposition from a majority of Americans, we continue to spend billions funding the extremist Netanyahu government’s all-out war against the Palestinian people which has led to the horrific humanitarian disaster of mass malnutrition and the starvation of thousands of children.”
What “strong opposition” is that from a “majority of Americans” to providing Israel with the military means it needs to defend itself in a two-front war against the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah? Fewer than one in three Americans think that Israel may have “gone too far” in Gaza, while more than two-thirds think Israel’s conduct of the war is either just right, or that the IDF ought to be pressing Hamas even harder than it has been.
Bernie Sanders is also wrong about the importance American voters give to the war in Gaza — only 4% list foreign policy as a major concern, and of those 4%, how many are most interested in an impending trade war with China, or in the Russia-Ukraine war, or North Korea’s saber-rattling, rather than the war in Gaza? The future of democracy, the economy, immigration — these are the matters that voters cited as their main concerns. The war in Gaza matters so much to Bernie Sanders, and he has decided it must matter just as much to hundreds of millions of Americans. It doesn’t. And those most concerned with the war in Gaza are likely to be people who disagree with Sanders; these are the supporters of Israel who are worried about America standing by its embattled ally as it fights its multi-front war.
He refers to the “all-out war” he claims Israel is conducting “against the Palestinian people.” The IDF is not waging war against the people of Gaza, but against the terror group Hamas, which has brought only misery to ordinary Gazans. The IDF does everything it can to warn Gazans about areas and buildings that are about to be targeted. To this end, by March the IDf had dropped nine million leaflets, sent fifteen million text messages, and made sixteen million robocalls, all to warn civilians so that they could get out of the way of those sites in time. Israeli pilots are instructed to abort their missions whenever the risk of civilian casualties is too high.
As usual, Sanders’ statement is deeply off base — both about the situation in Israel, and about the impact of the war on the 2024 election.
Exit polls and voter surveys have painted a clear picture of American priorities in the 2024 election, and the war in Gaza was nowhere near the top of the list.
Instead, the leading issues were the state of democracy, which 34% of voters cited as their main concern, followed by 31% for the economy, abortion for 14%, and immigration at 11%. By contrast, only 4% of voters were most concerned with foreign policy….
Foreign policy includes many things besides the war in Gaza: the Ukraine-Russia war, and the North Korean troops now helping Putin; the looming trade war with China, and Beijing’s threats to its neighbors over competing claims in the South China Sea, as well as potential threats to Taiwan; the Paris Agreement on the climate; the defense spending of NATO members; North Korea’s nuclear threat. Of those 4% “most concerned with foreign policy,” how many were focused mainly on the war in Gaza? And of those, how many shared Sanders’ anti-Israeli views and how many were worried that Washington was not doing enough to help Israel?
Sanders has embraced the resolutely anti-Israel members of the Squad, particularly Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He stumped for Ilhan Omar both in her primary contest and in the election, constantly praising her as “not only one of the most courageous members of Congress—a leader who time and time again stands up for the working class against powerful special interests—she is also one of the toughest people I know.” Omar’s vituperative attacks on Israel don’t bother Sanders — for god’s sake, he agrees with her. He has also supported, and been supported by, Omar’s even more extreme colleague, Palestinian-American Rashida Tlaib.
Tlaib endorsed Sanders for President in 2019. Since then they have been close. When Tlaib wanted to hold a meeting in the Congress Visitors Center to mark the “Nakba,” the Palestinian term meaning “catastrophe,” that refers to the Palestinians who left Israel during the 1948 war, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy thwarted her plan by reserving the space himself. Bernie Sanders then stepped in by chairing the meeting in another room in the Senate office building. At the meeting, Tlaib claimed that Israel was an “apartheid” state that commits acts of terror. Sanders made no objection. And Sanders is an ally not just of Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, but also of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also well known for her Israel-bashing. But Sanders wants you to know that he’s Jewish, so no matter what he says about Israel, no one can accuse him of antisemitism.
Bernie Sanders. Know him by the company he keeps — Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Ortiz. Know him by the charges he makes against the state of Israel, that he declares guilty of “ethnic cleansing,” though he has held back on making the charge of “genocide,” stating that he prefers to wait for the ruling on that charge by the International Court of Justice. Know him by the anti-Israel bills he keeps introducing in the Senate, his latest being a bill that would halt a $20 billion military aid package to Israel, at the very moment when Israel is fighting a four-front war against Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran. But remember, Bernie is Jewish, practically a yeshiva bocher. He only wants to save Israel in spite of itself. He wants it to go back to being an even tinier state that it is now (scarcely discernible on a map of the world). He wants it to be squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines, with a nine-mile-wide waist from Qalqilya to the sea. Then the state of Palestine can come into being on all the territory Israel will have been pressured to give up. And peace, of course, will reign. Don’t we have Mahmoud Abbas’ solemn assurances on that very score?
Some people claim that Bernie Sanders’ heart is in the right place, but it’s not his heart that sends shivers down my spine. It’s his mind.
Alex S Fuss says
I just don’t understand how someone can twist facts so much to defame his own people. Freud would have a field day psychoanalyzing this despicable politician. Thankfully, he has little influence.
libertyORdeath says
I’m pretty sure that over 70% of American Jews voted for Harris, so don’t get your hopes up.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Has their been any official data of the number of Jews of all sects that broke for Kamala vs Trump?
gravenimage says
Infidel, there may be polls. But no–the United States does not catalog how *any* group votes, nor should it. We have a secret vote here.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I’m assuming that any polls would be based either on Entrance/Exit polls, or on surveys done on a sample of population known for membership of certain groups, such as temples, or subscription lists and so on
somehistory says
After the election, some news people on the Blaze were saying that x number of Hispanics, x number of Blacks, x number of Jews….all voted for Trump.
These claims were based on the exit polls you mentioned.
somehistory says
His slamming Israel is no different than the husband who hits his wife….tells her he loves her, and then says, “Why do you make me hit you? I don’t want to. I love you.” (he doesn’t love her and wants to hit her)
Just because his parents were Jews, doesn’t mean that sanders is “a Jew on the inside.” On the words of the Apostle Paul, who was a Jew and a Lawyer, ”A Jew is one who is a Jew on the inside.”
Too many people were able to see through the empty suit to the psychopathic hyena and decided, “no way.”
Mike says
Chess genius Bobby Fischer had a Jewish mother and his birth father, Paul Nemenyi, was also Jewish. Yet, Fischer rejected the religion and hated Jews with a passion. On youtube, look up “Bobby Fischer and his hatred for Jews,” and also his interviews with Filipino chess grandmaster Eugene Torre.
Wellington says
He’s an old fool and there is no worse fool. Sadly, it seems the entire state of Vermont has gone into foolish mode and yet at one time Vermont was one of the most conservative states in the Union (e.g., in 1936 it was one of only two states that didn’t vote for FDR). What happened is that people from New York and Massachusetts (especially the former) moved to Vermont in huge numbers from the 1960s onwards and transformed it into the foolish state it has become. People like Bernie Sanders and Howard Dean (former Governor) were originally New Yorkers. And if I am not mistaken Vermont is the only state that went for Kamala Harris by more than 30 points so it has become even worse than New York and Massachusetts. Sanders is a symptom of a much larger problem, i.e., an entire state gone stupid.
gravenimage says
+1
St Croix says
Yuppies, as they used to be called, move into “quaint” areas to “get away from it all” and with lots of real estate cash from selling their expensive properties they can buy anything in a countryside town. Even starting bidding wars with other yuppies. Thus raising the price of property, and property tax, so locals, the “indigenous” residents, can barely afford to live there any more. Certainly their children can barely afford to buy.
Then they start bringing in woke, and dominating policies by running for council, pushing agendas, complaining about farming because of manure, complaining about dogs barking, you name it. I’ve seen it before, in multiple regions. Not unlike colonizing by Muslims or any other group coming from “away” and diluting local culture, identity and way of life.
Pray Hard says
Occam’s Razor, Bernie. It was you and yours.
Troybeam says
Democrats can never state they were wrong always someone or something else.
gary fouse says
Old Bernie’s been smoking his socks again.
gravenimage says
Bernie Sanders Blames Israel For Democrats’ Defeat
…………………………………..
Just unhinged.
James Lincoln says
Billy Joel:
“And he’ll go to the grave as an angry old man.”
Edward Amos Brandwein says
He’s a SELF-HATING JEW: nothing more than that.
Daniel Schlittner says
Sanders the American Soros, I,e, Quisling.
Westman says
Sanders is about as relevant as Ralph Nader. His time has passed and his ideas are passing, even from his own mind. His schtick was always American equity and socialism, not world politics.
It seems every pre-election Dem who avowed that Trumpers were the problem now looks for failure within the party’s approach to the election – unable to accept their minority view of Americans was soundly rejected. It was the economy and your condescending attitude toward people without university degrees who are just as smart as you, “stupid”.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
He may be old, but his ideas are now quite embraced, personified by the likes of AOC, TYT and other Marxists across this country. Yeah, the Kamalas and others may be elitists who’re happy to be bankrolled by whoever will bankroll them, be it P&G, Alphabet, Microsoft, Comcast, Meta or whoever. But in the Democrat Socialist party of America, they are unrepentant communists, who think that the Soviet Union was an experiment simply not done right, and that the same ideas, if implemented in the US, will be successful. That’s why Bernie may never be POTUS, but he sure will have the last laugh
JDow says
I am going to miss dear Bernie when he goes; he is so stuck on wrong I can use him to guide my thinking. If Bernie goes that way, I go the other way.
{^_-}
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Let’s just for a nanosecond, assume that this is true. In fact, let us personalize it a step further and say it was prime minister Netanyahu who caused the Dem debacle
To the extent that it was, it was a well deserved payback by him to the Democrat Party. Remember that 2 of the last 3 Democrat presidents of the US – Bill Clinton and Barack Obama – tried to get Netanyahu removed as prime minister in elections, and even the Biden administration (not Biden himself, given the state of his mind) did what it could to back the Leftists in Israel. All of that was a totally inappropriate interference by the US into the internal affairs of Israel, which is a separate, sovereign country. This from the same US party that screamed bloody murder when they either believed, or pretended to anyway, that Russia interfered in the 2016 US elections to cause their defeat
Since Netanyahu couldn’t get back at any of the presidents involved – Clinton, Obama or Biden, since all of them were either term-limited or didn’t run again, he did the next best thing (again, assuming that he did) – caused the defeat of Kamala Harris. Not totally off-target, since she made it a point to slight him during his address to Congress this fall. Since it succeeded, he can now have the last laugh, having hopefully taught this century’s newly minted anti-Semites a salutary lesson
In reality, Netanyahu didn’t do a thing. He just did what he had to in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran to secure Israel, whether it was bombing their military targets or assassinating jihadist rockstars like Nasrallah, Haniyeh, Sinwar, Safadine, et al. All that stung all those river-to-the-sea intifada voters in Michigan and elsewhere, and when they saw that Biden/Kamala couldn’t help them, they didn’t even show up to vote, or even worse, voted for Trump. Result was Netanyahu doing the perfect non-interference interference in the US election to finally avenge what James Carville did in the 90s, and what Obama & Biden tried during their terms
If the Dems had half a brain, they’d disown these backstabbing “supporters”, who not only turned on them in Michigan, but also caused them to lose a good portion of their Jewish vote. Heck, if they had just taken a stance identical to Trump on this policy of fully supporting Israel, they may even have won some extra Jewish votes in addition to the ones they usually win, & maybe even saved Pennsylvania. But looking more seriously at it, the Dems should learn to practice what they preach, and never interfere in the internal matters of other countries, and not trivialize international diplomacy by making it subservient to their electoral requirements
somehistory says
Well said, Infidel.
OLD GUY says
Big question, why do we keep electing these people like Bernie? I guess people just vote on name recognition and not the the things the candidate stand for.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Yeah, I’ve never understood that. While I may or may not blindly vote by party labels, if a particular candidate is imo toxic and I know nothing about his/her opponent, I’ll vote for the opponent
gravenimage says
I try to find out as much as possible about both candidates–sometimes, oddly, this is quite difficult, though. But like you if I *know* a candidate is toxic they will not get my vote. “Bernie” is one.
terry says
Those who dance in the hayfields of terrorist are as quilty as those who sow and bale it!
somehistory says
If Israel is responsible for the defeat of the hyena, a lot of people will be thanking Israel.
SC says
Bernie Sanders probably has great difficulty making a decision on which side of a sheet of toilet paper to use so I’ll take his opinions in the same way as i would take his toilet paper. NO THANKS.