Bernie Sanders has been repeatedly uttering the phrase “Israel has a right to defend itself” on his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, which in the year 2025 can only be interpreted as blatant genocide apologia.
Israel does not have “a right to defend itself” against an occupied population in a giant concentration camp. Under international law it has a right to end the occupation, and that’s it. “Israel has a right to defend itself” is just a slogan people say when they want to justify supplying an ongoing genocide.
Sanders has been mixing his support for Israel in with periodic criticisms of Netanyahu and the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza, always taking care to make his criticisms about the behavior of Israel’s current leadership and not the nature of the racist apartheid state itself.
Sanders is doing this for two reasons. Firstly, he is working to galvanize a big tent inclusive coalition of Democrats in opposition to Trump, and he wants that big tent to include people who think genocide is bad and people who think genocide is fine. He doesn’t want to offend the pro-genocide liberals.
Secondly, Sanders is doing this because he himself is a Zionist. Like other liberal Zionists, Bernie Sanders upholds a vision of an Israel that has never, ever existed: one which remains an ethnostate dominated by Jews, but which conducts itself in a kind and just manner, without constantly murdering and abusing Palestinians.
This iteration of the state of Israel is a fiction. An imaginary fantasyland, like Narnia. Everything about Israel is stacked against the possibility of such a status quo ever emerging, and Israel has always done everything it can to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. By pretending it is possible to have the Zionist entity and also have peace and justice, liberal Zionists help manufacture public consent for continuing to feed weapons to the genocidal apartheid state of Israel.
Here is an Israeli newspaper with an article from 2 days ago explaining how terribly wrong you are.
Here’s a list of Jewish anti-Zionist organisations. Perhaps you could go and volunteer and meet the Jewish people there.
Thank you for making my argument for me.
Perhaps you could go and volunteer and meet the Jewish people there.
So your argument against Jewish people being anti-Zionist is that US and Israeli leaders are condemning Jewish anti-zionists and that they should be denounced.
Seems contradictory no? Either there are Jewish people that are anti-Zionist or these people are denouncing something that doesn’t exist.
I have been more than accommodating hoping you might start to make some sense and not just post on vibes. So in that vain, I am regrettably going to have to block you. I have no ill feelings towards you and I wish you every success in life, I just don’t want to waste any more of my time conversing with someone who is either stupid or being purposefully ignorant.
Free 🇵🇸
These Jewish people oppose the existence of the Apartheid state of Israel. They are literally burning Israeli flags.
Do you support the existence of of Israel?