[See also: Analysis: On Monday Bernie Sanders Turned to the Dark Side
By Daniel Greenfield, JEWISH PRESS
Bernie Sanders hates discussing his Jewish roots, but that hasn’t stopped his lefty Jewish fans from gnawing at the subject like poorly trained puppies chewing on old tennis shoes.
Think Progress claims that Bernie Sanders is a “devout secular Jew”. “Bernie Sanders Is Jewish, but He Doesn’t Like to Talk About It,” the New York Times coughs apologetically. (And the Sulzbergers ought to know.) A Forward editorial neurotically screeches, “We Need To Out Bernie Sanders as a Jew — for His Own Good”.
But Bernie Sanders likes his devoutly Socialist closet. He prefers to describe himself as the son of Polish immigrants. Asked about religion, he disavows Judaism and embraces Pope Francis. The Times has him embracing the description “Non-Jewish Jew” which was coined by a Marxist in an essay explaining anti-Semitism, including the Holocaust, as a “superficial” reaction against capitalism.
Where Obama and Hillary ran on race and gender, Bernie Sanders avoids Jewishness as much as possible. He doesn’t practice Judaism, isn’t part of a Jewish community and avoids the “J” word.
One of the few times he used the dreaded “J” word was when a Muslim activist who cheered anti-Israel terrorism told him that she was afraid of Republicans. Suddenly Sanders puffed out his chest and told her, “I’m Jewish, my father’s family died in concentration camps. I will do everything that I can to rid this country of the ugly stain of racism.”
Considering that the activist, Remaz Abdelgader, had a quote stating, “It would be wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs” and snarled that, “Islam and civil rights issues are mutually exclusive”, that might not have been nearly as reassuring to the former MSA president as he intended it to be.
While Bernie Sanders invoked his last few drops of Jewishness and the Holocaust in support of a Muslim anti-Semite’s crybullying, he didn’t feel the need to do so for the Jewish State when it actually stood on the verge of destruction. Instead he had called for denying arms to Israel before the Yom Kippur War.
In 1971, he told an audience, “no guns for Israel.” Two years later, the Yom Kippur War brought Israel to the brink of destruction and shipments of American arms made the difference. But Bernie Sanders did not care and in 1988 still insisted that, “It is wrong that the United States provides arms to Israel.”
In 1990, he called for America to “put more pressure on Israel”.
Bernie Sanders sneeringly condemns what he calls Republican bigotry, but he endorsed Jesse Jackson despite his racist “Hymietown” slur. Before a joint appearance with Jackson, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan had warned Jews, “If you harm this brother, I warn you in the name of Allah this will be the last one you harm.” Despite that, Jesse Jackson refused to cut his ties with Farrakhan.
Rev. Jesse with his good friend, Bernie Sanders
Rev. Jesse with his good friend, Bernie Sanders
Jackson had told a Washington Post reporter, “That’s all Hymie wants to talk about, is Israel; every time you go to Hymietown, that’s all they want to talk about”. Bernie Sanders however tried to prove he was a good “Hymie” (or a good Non-Hymie Hymie) by defending Jackson’s hostility to the Jewish state.
Bernie Sanders brags about his endorsement from Congressman Keith Ellison despite his past support for the Nation of Islam and his appearance with Khalid Abdul Muhammad who had called Jews “bloodsuckers” and had said, “If you’re a Jew, I’m against you.” Nation of Islam leader Farrakhan, who calls Jews “false Jews”, praised Bernie Sanders as a “real Jew, not a so-called Jew”. The very thing that makes Bernie Sanders seem suspect to Jews makes him more appealing to anti-Semitic hate groups.
Sanders met with Al Sharpton despite his anti-Semitic remarks and the horror of the Crown Heights Pogrom in which an entire Jewish community was besieged by racist mobs chanting, “Death to the Jews”. The former Democratic presidential candidate had taunted, “If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.” Not a problem for Bernie Sanders.
While Bernie Sanders is quick to call Republicans bigots, he not only fails to stand up against anti-Semitism from the left, but he has supported and collaborated with anti-Semites.
And he’s still doing it now.
When Bernie Sanders reached out for perspective on the Middle East during his campaign, he contacted James Zogby, who defended Hamas and Hezbollah, and Lawrence Wilkerson, who had accused Jewish officials of dual loyalty and suggested that Israel was behind Assad’s chemical weapons attacks.
The truth about Bernie Sanders is that he is not Jewish in any sense other than the genetic. He is a left-wing radical who is uncomfortable with any mention of his Jewish background because he does not like Jews. Even his time on an Israeli Kibbutz, a staple with which his Jewish fans nurtured their fantasies of a Jewish Bernie, fell apart when it emerged that his Kibbutz had flown a red flag and admired Stalin and the Soviet Union as part of a radical leftist movement that had initially opposed the creation of Israel.
His first and foremost allegiance has always been to the left at the expense of the Jews.
Bernie Sanders cheered the Sandanista regime whose mobs chanted “Death to the Jews,” “Jewish Pigs” and “What Hitler started we will finish.” He did not invoke the Holocaust when a synagogue was firebombed and in an echo of Hitler’s Germany, its president was forced to scrub the streets.
The anti-Semitic regime that Bernie Sanders supported ethnically cleansed the Jewish population of Nicaragua. It marched the indigenous Indian population into churches and set them on fire.
And Bernie Sanders defended the Marxist terrorist regime that was committing these atrocities.
Bernie Sanders was equally enthusiastic about Cuba and the Soviet Union, two other Communist dictatorships that were persecuting the Jews. Sanders did not see fit to invoke the Holocaust on behalf of Jews actually facing anti-Semitic persecution the way that he has invoked it on behalf of Muslims.
But perhaps he thought that, like the other victims of the left, they were getting what they deserved.
When Bernie Sanders went on his visit to the USSR, there were no more concentration camps in Europe, but there were still Jews locked up in the gulags of the Soviet Union. While he was admiring Soviet youth programs, Jewish refuseniks were still being denied permission to leave the Communist dictatorship.
While American official visitors often met with political dissidents, there is no sign that Sanders did so. It would have been out of character for a man who had justified Communist crackdowns on the opposition to have met with enemies of the regime. For Bernie Sanders, the Sandanistas, Castro and the Soviet Union were models to be emulated and victims of capitalist repression by America, Wall Street and its evil corporations. Much in the same way that Muslim terrorism against Jews is excused today.
Bernie Sanders invokes the Holocaust when asked about his Jewish identity, not because he has empathy for Jews, but in a classic leftist maneuver to distract attention from that lack of empathy. His conception of the Holocaust is detached from Jewish suffering. It is purely about his leftist politics.
Surreally he references the Holocaust only to add that it taught him that politics is “important”. The Holocaust has no Jewish meaning for Bernie Sanders. It merely validates his self-importance.
At a Democratic debate, when asked about the historic nature of the election, he avoided saying that the first Jewish president would be as historic as the first female president. Instead he mumbled that it would be his “views” of “taking on the big money interests” that would make him historic.
Bernie Sanders does not want to be the first Jewish president. He wants to be the first Socialist president. There is nothing Jewish about Bernie Sanders except his vestigial accent. He makes common cause with anti-Semites because Jews don’t matter to him, only the agenda of the left does.
About the Author: Daniel Greenfield is an Israeli born blogger and columnist, and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His work covers American, European and Israeli politics as well as the War on Terror. His writing can be found at http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ These opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Jewish Press.
I would counter what you say Deanblake. No race has exclusivity on intelligence. You have put the Arabs down to be trodden upon.
Others have reported that the problem with Muslims is their religion. In their religion, one can take two paths, path one is the “strict King and absolute ruler, (ie dictatorship)” The oother path is the “lifestyle or the modern view, with religion in the home, laws of the land apply, tolerance for other religions and values and most of all”. The IS has followed the strict old path, and when you see the age of who follows IS, you can understand– youth with no jobs, no education, and their succumbing to promises.
Regarding intelligence, if you look at Israel and the medical discoveries, a large percentage of them were developed by non Jews (Druz, Muslims, Christians) working in the hospitals, Technion and other research centres. Ditto for technology.
Here is my conjecture. To fight the enemy it will take carefully crafted propaganada.
Propaganda to show how well Muslims residing outside of the middle east live. Show education, jobs, and luxuries. Propaganda has to be done over and over. Include with the propaganda, contests such as a free family trip to visit some non middle-east country.
And when the actors blame the Hamas or Hezboulah for redirecting money to tunnels, or government corruption for the poverty, people will start to recognize what their life and their leaders are about. Propaganda has to be a 5 year plan and even extended a second 5 years.
Climate change and dictatorships are causing world famine. Water is a problem in Egypt, and in other countries. Israel has tackled this problem and is currently self-sufficient.
By the way, in our local stores selling middle-east food products, there is an abundance from Lebananon, Morrocco, and a trickling of products from other countries. So yes, they are planting crops for export. There are also Israeli food products amoungst the ones mentioned.
My question to you and others is, Should a pundit be totally biased on one side as an attack, a more balanced view comparing both sides of the attack?
Back to Sanders.
He is postulating a growing American position towards Israel. From CNN, BBC, FOX, NBC, ABC and newspapers we support Israel sliming down to “if she is under attack, we will be there, but otherwise, Israel is on their own.”
We Jews need to go back to buying Israeli bonds or investing in Israeli companies so Israel can maintain its defense and offensive abilities.
@ lsatenstein:
There is no ‘economy’ among the Arabs, not anywhere. They are a society totally dependant upon natural resources and the ‘Palestinians’ have none. The total GNP – manufacturing, etc. of the entire Arab nations, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is less than 1/2 that of tiny Finland. They can’t feed themselves, Egypt, for example, is one of the largest importers of wheat in the world. Saudi Arabia has stopped growing wheat with ancient aquifer water this year – totally dependant upon USA imports.
Israel, on the other hand has human resources upon which it relies for its economy.
The problem in GAZA is it is run by radical Islamist’s who want to destroy the state of Israel. 80% of the population agrees with them.
Israel left Gaza with 100s of hothouses in tact that raised flowers and vegetables. These were left to the Gazans who had been employed by the Israelis (via the purchase of US Ambassador). These were destroyed by Hamas when Israel left and turned into terror training grounds.
Unemployment is the product of radical Islam who would rather try and destroy Israel in lieu of working side by side in peace. Hamas is using the cement sent to repair the destroyed buildings for terror tunnels in lieu of repairing the civilian homes.
Yet naive and misguided people think it is socio-economic issues and Israelis defending themselves that is the problem.
Want peace get of the terrorists and all their supporters and ignore the Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton’s of this world and their naive misguided followers.
When there is rampant unemployment, as it is amongst all religious communities, to pass the time, they turn to religion and become more devout, or they turn to hashish, and self hatred. That is a universal problem.
Its happening in the USA. The rich are getting richer, the middle class becoming poorer, and the poor, wallowing in welfare.
What is the universal solution to this problem in Gaza, in the USA and in poor societies, particularly when automation and robots does a consistent quality job. The answer is to gear people to education and to a 4 day work week.
As a society, we were better off when obligatory All “businesses are closed on Sunday” law was in place. We had families that were more united. True, we Jews had a two day weekend, but that gave us time to communicate between parents, children, and family. Parents actually did things together on the weekends. Now, they shop on the weekend and work two jobs during the week to make ends meet.
Sanders can’t turn back the clock, to the wartime, when there was zero unemployment or to 1950’s, the baby boom era when again there was unusually low unemployment.
The Brussels problem is that there is one community (the immigrants — mainly muslim) that are under-employed.
@Izzy
If you really want peace with Gaza, Israeli
businessesfighter jets have tolook to doing joint projects with Gazasend the Hamas Islamo Nazis off to collect their 72 Helen Thomas-lookalike virgins.Bernie Sanders condemned Israel from protecting itself against Hamas rockets in the last war. Bernie has for years been against Israel getting weapons from the USA to defend itself including during the Yom Kippur War when Israel was fighting for its existence.
So is an oxymoron to say one is for Bernie and Israel.
I am very pro Sanders. Canadians see him as the best of the best candidates. Truly
He mantra is fairness to all. On his Video response to Trump and Cruz, he pointed out that unemployment in Gaza is at 54 percent, and that with 1/2 unemployed and with time on their hands, that the USA should help Gaza to create jobs. Creating jobs and trade would do more to stop the fighting than the alternatives.
He has always stood up for the common man.
Israel Pundit. In the 1950’s when I was a child, the KKK were burning down black homes, were forcing blacks to set in the back of the bus, and were under intense discrimination by the KKK and the wonderful southern American Christians. Discrimination was rampant, and Sanders endorsed Jesse Jackson Louis Farrakhan, Keith Ellison and Al Sharpton.
Now what is the red herring about
We are discussing Sanders and Israel. Instead, the author is trying desperately to show that Sanders is anti-Israel.
Sanders is pointing out that the Gaza problem is an economic one, with aide money diverted to Hamas.
You pundits read this.
Trump is not a Jew, and has stated definitely that it is time for Israel to stand on it’s own. No favoritism from the USA.
Ditto for Hillory Clinton, She would begin to distance the USA from Israel, as would Sanders. Cruz would support Israel, as it is the birthplace of Jesus. With Israel and it’s multi-culturism, Christian pilgrims will have access to the holy lands.
If you really want peace with Gaza, Israeli businesses have to look to doing joint projects with Gaza.
Israel, stop putting impediments in place to stifle Gaza business growth. Yes, you search each shipment going in and control incoming materials in response to a legitimate concern, but don’t delay the outgoing shipments of what products they can sell.
L-I-B-E-R-A-L J-E-W = A-N-T-I I-S-R-A-E-L.
Always.
Or to paraphrase our beloved Poet Laureate:
“Eternally. Relentlessly. Timelessly.”
That is the key to great poetry…being redundant.