Thursday, April 25, 2019

The Senator from Vermont

"US democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is standing by his criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying Israel is 'now run by a right-wing, dare I say, racist government'.... The senator from Vermont said he was 'not anti-Israel" but felt Netanyahu was 'a right-wing politician' who was treating the Palestinian people 'extremely unfairly'. Sanders then added that he was '100% pro-Israel' and that the country has 'every right in the world to exist... in peace and security and not be subjected to terrorists' attack'." (Sanders hits out at 'racist' Israeli rule, McClatchy/AP/Sydney Morning Herald, 24/4/19)

This says just about everything you really need to know about the politics of 2020 presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders.

In the words of a university friend quoted in his Wikipedia entry, he was "a  swell guy, a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn, but he wasn't terribly charismatic." While he has a track record of being on the side of the people against the system, he's obviously intellectually blinkered by his youthful brush with Zionism, including a stint on an Israeli kibbutz in the early 1960s.

It speaks volumes too about the limits to freedom of speech and thought in the so-called 'land of the brave and home of the free'. Sanders "dares to say" that Israel now has "a racist government," but cannot bring himself to acknowledge that the Zionist project in Palestine itself is inherently racist (dare I say apartheid), and that every Zionist government since 1948 has contributed its share of anti-Palestinian racism to the present racism of the Netanyahu government.

What's more, while Sanders' talk of Palestinians being treated "extremely unfairly" doesn't even begin to acknowledge the extent of Zionism's genocidal onslaught against them, to confine said unfairness merely to the present Netanyahu government is beyond belief.

And finally, to prate about terrorism without reference to Israel's role as the pioneer of terrorism in the Middle East surely has to be the mother of all sins of omission.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Is Israel also main progenitor of political assassinations in the Middle East? Ellie Hobeika, Haim Arlosof, Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, Khaled Mashal and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, only a minute number of assassinations or attempts vehemently refuted to have been committed by Israel. Each case also merits an alternate interpretation based on the evidence that strongly points to Israeli involvement.