Bernie Sanders is officially running against Israeli apartheid! Yesterday Sanders posted an ad on his Facebook page featuring excerpts from activist Shaun King’s introduction of the Vermont senator at his Brooklyn College campaign launch March 2. King embraced the label that Donald Trump has given Sanders, of being crazy.
Listen, he has always rejected the status quo. He spoke out against apartheid in South Africa when crazily that was an unpopular thing to do. And even today he speaks out against apartheid-like conditions in Palestine even though it’s not popular. Listen, I don’t care if 45 calls him Crazy Bernie because he is a little crazy.
The ad uses the apartheid reference with the graphics above and below, including the statement, “Bernie smashes the Israel status quo.”
Peter Feld sent me the ad. “It’s a great ad, how it uses Trump at the end, saying ‘He doesn’t quit.’ I went to the kickoff rally. Chants of “Free Palestine” broke out while the crowd was waiting for it to start. For sure you’ll hear ‘from the river to the sea’ at next year’s DNC.”
The ad is surely a tactical shift by Sanders from 2016, when the senator, who is Jewish, largely avoided foreign policy, couched his criticisms of Israel in praise and bashed Netanyahu by saying, “There comes a time when if we pursue justice and peace we are going to have to say that Netanyahu is not right all of the time.”
And that was seen as revolutionary! But that was then and this is now. The progressives base of the party is pro-Palestinian, and Sanders is speaking to them.
Trump was going to be “neutral” on I-P and look how that turned out. Sanders may be “smashing the Israel status quo” but I doubt he’s going to put a dent in its or his Zionism.
bring it on! this is the conversation we want to have. on almost every issue other dem presidential candidates have followed sanders lead, will they dare to cross the lobby and follow his lead on israel?
RE: New Sanders ad says he “smashes the Israel status quo”
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https://observer.com/2019/02/matt-duss-bernie-sanders-foreign-policy/
Feb 6, 2019 – Matt Duss helped persuade the Senate late last year to end U.S. military support … How One Advisor Bolstered Bernie Sanders’ Foreign Policy …
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https://www.thenation.com/article/matt-duss-bernie-sanders-foreign-policy-blob/
Feb 6, 2019 – Who Is Matt Duss, and Can He Take On Washington’s ‘Blob’? … Bernie Sanders’s foreign-policy adviser is part of a new generation of progressives fighting an entrenched status quo. … “We have been providing the bombs the Saudi-led coalition is using, refueling their planes …
■ Q&A with Bernie Sanders’ 2020 foreign policy adviser – Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com/matt-duss-bernie-sanders-foreign-policy-adviser-2019-2
Feb 25, 2019 – Bernie Sanders enters the 2020 race with a much clearer foreign policy agenda then in 2016. Part of that is thanks to Matt Duss, the senator’s …
Sanders says “apartheid-like”. I guess there is something to be said for calling it “apartheid-like” rather than just “apartheid”. I think Frank Lutz would even approve of it if he weren’t such an apartheid-loving Republican. Maybe Jimmy Carter would have had fewer problems if had instead named his book, “Peace, not Apartheid-Like”. I tried the “apartheid-like” label in a NYT comment to today’s Bari Weiss column on Lapid and I got a “Times Pick”. Woohoo!
I am uncertain the message…. what exactly is intended to be meant by, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free “. Does it mean no Israel as some think?
Perspectives?