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Sanders’s leftwing base made him take on Netanyahu

The world is still reeling from the fact that last Thursday night, Bernie Sanders said on a New York stage, ahead of tomorrow’s New York primary, that the United States must be evenhanded in the Israel/Palestine conflict and that Benjamin Netanyahu is not always right and that Israel attacked Gaza with disproportionate force. These stunning revelations (irony alert) have already transformed the US discourse. It is suddenly OK to criticize the special relationship. And maybe you noticed Hillary Clinton edging away from her support for Netanyahu on that New York stage. She mumbled about the fact that she had been critical of certain foreign leaders in her writings. A reference to the fact that, because President Obama twisted her arm to do it, she had to upbraid Netanyahu once over illegal settlement construction.

Sanders has transformed the mainstream discourse because he has suddenly made it OK to say these things publicly–things everyone knew. The immediate reaction last week was that Sanders punted the New York primary in his remarks, that he doesn’t want to win. But there has been wide respect for Sanders’s comments on emperor’s new clothes grounds; and last night in Washington journalists Mara Liasson of NPR and JJ Goldberg of the Forward said that Sanders will not suffer in the New York vote for his remarks.

Liasson asserted that Jewish public opinion had changed because of the disgraceful Netanyahu intervention in our politics last year and she noted that Sanders was cheered “wildly” for his remarks– an observation Goldberg echoed when he said that Sanders’s base made him do it.

“I think he had to do it because of his base, because so much of his base is on the left,” Goldberg said, a truth echoed by Malcolm Hoenlein, a pro-Israel boss, who is quoted today grumbling that the Democratic left is weak on Israel.

His base made him do it. This belief is a reflection of the power of the pro-Palestine movement inside the Democratic Party and among American youth. We’ve been saying this for months, and the weekend has proved that prediction to be right. Sanders knows that if he had said nothing about Netanyahu and Israeli human rights atrocities in Gaza when Wolf Blitzer asked him about it, his base would have gotten angry and restless, and wondered where their leader is.

Look back at Sanders’s fumbling and angry performance at a town hall during Gaza in August 2014. He seemed protective of Israel then, and piped talking points about ISIS. He has grown since that time; the movement has led him.

JJ Goldberg also asserted last night (at a J Street panel at the 6th and I Synagogue) that Sanders was only saying what Barack Obama and George W. Bush and Bill Clinton said before him, except that he had the temerity to say it before January 20th not after. While Roger Cohen of the New York Times said, to laughter, that what Sanders said would not even make the newspapers in Europe, the ideas are so commonplace.

Maybe those things are true, but credit where credit is due. President Obama said a lot of this in Cairo in June 2009, but he walked it back over the next three years, under the kind offices of Hillary Clinton and the Israel lobby surrogate she brought into the administration to train Obama in orthodox foreign policymaking, Dennis Ross. In Cairo, Obama did not say that the Israeli massacre of just six months before in Gaza was “disproportionate,” nor did he describe the depths of destruction there, as Bernie Sanders did on Thursday. No, Obama helped to demolish  the Goldstone Report a year later.

The great thing about Sanders’s statements is that they have not killed him instantly. Jewish Insider reports that Sanders expanded his comments on the Sunday talk shows to say that Netanyahu often gets things wrong, and, this just in, his older brother Larry says that “Bernard” is not a self-hating Jew.

So the discourse is changed because Sanders decided to change it; and because his base is giving him wild support to say these things. He has demonstrated that officialdom is a sniveling mob and if one brave person stands up to challenge that mob, public opinion will change in an instant. Sanders’s bravery just shows how many other politicians have run around for years with their tails between their legs. The biggest surprise of last night’s panel in DC was Neera Tanden of the Center for American Progress. She repeatedly slammed Netanyahu and the right in Israel, saying that that Israeli political culture is too far gone now for anyone to make any progress on peace talks. Bernie Sanders has liberated her. Just a few months after she sucked up pathetically to Netanyahu.

Yes, I’m optimistic. But isn’t that the spirit of American progressives? Something got shattered last Thursday night. An edifice of public lies and hypocrisy about the special relationship and Israel’s conduct. Bernie Sanders attained an iconic status by rising to the occasion.

And his base made him do it. Sisters and brothers, keep up the struggle.

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This is a great article. It is an interesting perspective to what Bernie Sanders may have unleashed.

Criticism of Israel was always the elephant in the room, and no one dared to even speak out against it’s policies, or the disproportionate attacks on unarmed civilians using Hamas as an excuse. Entire families were wiped out by precision bombs, and despite the UN constantly condemning Israel for using such excessive force, and for targeting civilians structures, the bombing got worse, and WE kept handing them more ammunition.

Bernie Sanders has opened that door that the zionists made sure was shut in the US. Now fair minded journalist can question our support, and the sending of aid to such a brutal occupier, and those not drinking that zio koolaid can not only refer to what Bernie Sanders said, but a recent lengthy report criticizing Israel’s excessive force, torture and the many horrible war crimes totally not befitting a so called “democracy”. The big question is, WHAT THE HECK WILL THE US DO ABOUT IT? Would our congress stay MUM about this yet again, and if this was Iran, wouldn’t the outrage be deafening?

U.S. acknowledges Israel’s unlawful killings, excessive force, torture, discrimination against Palestinians
Summary of lengthy U.S. State Department report detailing human rights violations in Israel & occupied territories

http://www.salon.com/2016/04/18/u_s_acknowledges_israels_unlawful_killings_excessive_force_torture_discrimination_against_palestinians/

I wonder if Sanders’s remarks about Israel/Palestine and his meeting with the Pope may upend the polls.

Bernie Sanders will in all probability not be the Democratic nominee for president in 2016, but his candidacy will be cited in the next phase of left activism in the us. (Just as occupy wall Street must be mentioned when discussing the Sanders campaign.) Since Sanders is right wing on Israel compared to most of the Democratic left, his stance on Israel is relevant and a precursor of the next stages when an anti Israel stance will not be as moderate as Sanders’.

Israeli ambassador briefed Trump’s son-in-law ahead of AIPAC speech
http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page//.premium-1.714796

Israeli ambassador briefed Trump’s son-in-law ahead of AIPAC speech

Netanyahu’s confidant Ron Dermer discussed diplomatic and security policy with Jared Kushner, who wrote Trump’s speech, ahead of the conference.
By Barak Ravid | Apr. 17, 2016 | 12:51 PM | 7

Those listening to U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s speech at the AIPAC conference in March may have found themselves puzzled as to the identity of the speaker. Large portions of the speech, especially those having to do with Iran and the Palestinians, sounded like they were taken verbatim from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s talking point sheet.

An article published by Reuters recently may have revealed why that is. It turns out that a few days before the conference Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, spoke on the phone with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who wrote that speech. In their telephone conversation, Dermer briefed Kushner on the Netanyahu government’s stance on current diplomatic and security issues.

A source at the Israeli embassy in Washington confirmed that this phone call did in fact take place, adding that “The ambassador spoke to the people of all the leading presidential candidates.”

Kushner, an Orthodox Jew, is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump. He has been involved with the Trump campaign’s connection to Israel even before writing the speech. It was he who worked on organizing Trumps visit in Israel, which was supposed to take place in December. The visit was canceled last minute after the candidate’s comments on Muslim immigration to the U.S. were harshly criticized in Jerusalem, including a critical statement issued by the prime minister.

On Thursday, during a question-and-answer session with Jewish journalists in New york, Trump commented on the incident, saying that he was “disappointed” with Netanyahu’s response. According to the Jewish Insider Trump said that Netanyahu’s response was less positive than what he hoped and he decided to cancel the visit.

“I like him. I have always liked him,” Trump said on Netanyahu. “I was disappointed in his statement. He didn’t say, ‘Don’t come.’ In fact, it was the opposite. But I didn’t like his statement. That wasn’t necessarily the reason I didn’t go, but I didn’t like his statement.”

Here we go with the “he-was-brave” comment, written in the same sentence as “he’s-getting-votes-out-of-it comment.

Plenty of Jews, particularly the liberal Zionists who lay the best claim to Bernie Sanders’s views on Israel (and whose views you now co-opt), were happy to hear Sanders criticize Netanyahu, who is a very easy target, and to repeat what Paul Wolfowitz said 14 years ago about having sympathy for the Palestinians.

As you can also see, Sanders isn’t a BDS fan, and the reason he suspended Simone Zimmerman (which almost seems like a plan to promote her more than it does to hurt her, since hiring her as Jewish Outreach Coordinator made no sense in the first place), is probably because she’s widely perceived as a BDS advocate (even though she does not advocate BDS).