On Wednesday, apparently in response to the shooting at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City in which Jews were murdered, Senator Bernie Sanders weighed in by tweeting “we are witnessing a dangerous rise in anti-Semitic acts of violence,” followed by “I am deeply concerned about reports that the terrible shooting at a kosher supermarket in New Jersey was motivated by hatred of the Jewish people.”
In the United States and all over the world, we are witnessing a dangerous rise in anti-Semitic acts of violence.
I am deeply concerned about reports that the terrible shooting at a kosher supermarket in New Jersey was motivated by hatred of the Jewish people.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) December 11, 2019
The hypocrisy of Sanders’ concern about hatred of Jews could not be more pronounced; this is the same man who routinely takes sides against the one Jewish state in the world; this is the same man who has Jew-haters like Linda Sarsour stand by his side; this is the same man whose only connection to Judaism is an accident of birth and nothing to do with Jewish religious belief.
Let’s take a look at how much Sanders cares about Jews:
In October, 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.”
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.
Sanders and Sarsour: In September the Sanders campaign identified Sarsour as a “2020 Bernie surrogate.” As JTA notes:
Nov. 29: Sarsour appears at the annual conference of American Muslims for Palestine, and says in a speech at the Chicago event that Zionists, not pro-Palestinian advocates, should be on the defensive. In particular, she calls out progressive Zionists, suggesting they have no place in the larger progressive movement.
Sarsour ranted:
Ask those who call themselves progressive Zionists to explain to you how they can be against the separation of children on the U.S.-Mexican border, how can they be against building a wall between us and Mexico, how can they be against agencies like ICE … but then you tell me “Oh, you can’t push me out of the movement because I’m also against white supremacy.” Ask them this, how can you be against white supremacy in America and the idea of being in a state based on race and class, but then you support a state like Israel that is based on supremacy, that is built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everyone else.
In 2012, Sarsour tweeted, “Nothing is creepier than Zionism.” In November 2017, appearing at a panel discussion about anti-Semitism, Sarsour spoke of the “Jewish media,” complaining that the “Jewish media” was singling her out along with anti-Semitic preacher Louis Farrakhan.
Vis-à-vis Jewish belief, Sanders has stated, “I am not actively involved with organized religion,” and “I am what I am. And what I believe in, and what my spirituality is about, is that we’re all in this together.”