Two rather anti Israel ants duking it out…..what a show…rsk
Israel and Palestine. This is perhaps one of the most contentious issues, globally — so much so that no presidential candidate for the United States has ever declared their support for the Palestinians. Until now.
Bernie Sanders sparred with Hillary Clinton in Thursday night’s Democratic primary debate on the subject of Israel and Palestine. Couching his message in his “100%” support for Israel, Sanders said the Palestinians needed to be treated with compassion and “dignity” for any progress to be made — and that America plays a big role in that. Clinton did not appear to agree.
“As somebody who is 100% pro-Israel, in the long run, and this is not going be easy … if we are ever going to bring peace to that region — which has seen so much hatred and so much war — we are going to have to treat the Palestinian people with respect and dignity,” Sanders, who is himself Jewish and has spent prolonged periods of time in Israel, told the audience.
He was responding to moderator Wolf Blitzer’s question of whether or not Israel’s 2014 Gaza offensive was disproportionate in its retaliation. Sanders replied in the affirmative, a position he’s made known in the past.
“Israel was subjected to terrorist attacks [and] has every right in the world to destroy terrorism,” the Vermont senator said. “But we had in the Gaza area — not a very large area — some 10,000 civilians who were wounded and some 1,500 who were killed. Now if you’re asking me … ‘Was that a disproportionate attack?’ The answer is I believe it was.”
Just hours before these remarks, Sanders suspended Simone Zimmerman, in charge of his campaign’s national Jewish outreach, for making distasteful remarks about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Facebook — Zimmerman also aspersed Clinton in her posts.
The Zionist or Israel lobby in the upper echelons of American power has silenced many on the issue of Israel and Palestine. It is “one of the most potent advocacy groups in Washington, D.C.,” the Independent explained in 2013, after Chuck Hagel, during his Secretary of Defense confirmation hearing, reneged on his comments that Congress was intimidated by the lsrael lobby.
