Good news! According to Bowman and Sanders, there is no such thing as Palestinian terror!

From the extreme Leftist Jewish Currents:

REP. JAMAAL BOWMAN AND SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS are leading an effort to urge President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to investigate whether Israel is using US weapons to commit human rights abuses against Palestinians, in violation of United States law, according to a letter and e-mail sent to other members of Congress obtained by Jewish Currents. The letter was written by Bowman, while Sanders is spearheading efforts to garner support from other senators, according to Bowman’s office. The letter has so far been signed by eight additional lawmakers: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Summer Lee, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar, Betty McCollum, André Carson, and Ayanna Pressley. “At this inflection point, we ask your administration to undertake a shift in US policy in recognition of the worsening violence, further annexation of land, and denial of Palestinian rights,” the lawmakers wrote. The lawmakers end the letter by calling on the Biden administration to “ensure US taxpayer funds do not support projects in illegal settlements” and to “determine whether US-origin defense articles have been used in violation of existing US laws.” The letter criticizes the new Israeli government’s “alarming actions” and its cabinet of “far-right, anti-Palestinian individuals and parties,” asserting that the Israeli coalition in power is “pushing repressive, anti-democratic policies and escalating violence towards the Palestinian population.”

As usual, Israel haters are using any excuse they can to sever the ties between the US and Israel. Here, they are even using the protests against judicial reform to help promote their accusation of Israel using US weapons against innocent Palestinians. 

The letter itself is a mishmash of anti-Israel rhetoric. It describes Israel's raids of Palestinian terrorists as nothing more than killing Palestinians for no reason. 

Here is its summary of the events in the West Bank this year:

Shocking violence in late February encapsulated the bloody reality in the occupied West Bank. On February 22, a daytime raid by the Israeli army into the crowded Palestinian city of Nablus killed 11 Palestinians, among them a 72 year-old-man and a 16-year-old child. On February 26, a Palestinian gunman shot dead two Israeli settlers outside of Nablus. Subsequently, hundreds of Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian town of Huwara. The settlers, accompanied by the Israeli army, set fire to homes, schools, vehicles, and businesses, killing one Palestinian and injuring over 300 Palestinians. The local Israeli military commander called the attack a “pogrom." The attack was not an isolated incident, with the State Department reporting that Israeli settler attacks have expanded in severity and scale. The day after the Huwara attack, an Israeli-American citizen Elan Ganeles was killed by a Palestinian gunman on a highway in the occupied West Bank. 

This comes amid an already violent year. Israeli forces and settlers have killed over 85 Palestinians in 2023, including 16 children. At least 14 Israelis have been killed, including two children. The previous year was the deadliest for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since 2004 and included the Israeli military’s killings of two American citizens, Shireen Abu Akleh and Omar Assad.

At no point does it mention that the vast majority of those killed by Israel - including nearly all of the "children - were members of terror groups or actively engaged in fighting.  Israel's record in avoiding civilian casualties in urban warfare is far better than that of the US itself. 

In fact, the word "terror" is missing from the letter (except for a footnote.) One would have no idea that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are active in the West Bank, nor that the Palestinian Authority has not been doing nearly enough to stop those groups. The letter certainly doesn't mention the number of Al Aqsa Brigades members who have been involved in these clashes, because mentioning Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah would be embarrassing. The fact that cities like Jenin have been essentially taken over by masked gunmen who terrorize the residents as well is simply ignored. Reading the letter, one would think that Israel kills scores of Palestinians for no reason whatsoever, and occasionally some individual gunmen kill a Jewish "settler" who barely counts as human anyway.

It mentions an American citizen killed by Palestinians, but unlike the public insistence on investigations and accountability for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh, this letter says nothing about holding the terror group behind the murder of Elan Ganeles accountable. 

Previous investigations of whether the IDF had run afoul of US policy in using military aid have not found any issues (since 2006.) But Israel haters don't care abut facts, and keep making the accusations anew every year.

Meanwhile, no one calls for investigation into how US equipment is used by Egyptian and Jordanian armed forces who are accused of torture and unlawful killings by the US State Department.

This letter isn't a sober listing of legitimate concerns. It is a hit piece meant to incite hatred of Israel. And it can be seen in how it talks about Huwara.

The Huwara attack by settlers was reprehensible - and it is utterly irrelevant to the alleged point of the letter, to investigate Israel's use of American weapons. The letter implies that the IDF colluded with the attackers, which the authors know is a lie.   But since the real point of the letter is to incite hatred for Israel and Israeli Jews, and in that context it all makes sense.

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"Experts" who have NEVER been correct upset at being ignored

This tweet from Matt Duss, Bernie Sanders' foreign policy advisor and president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, is really amusing:

A good question for reporters to be asking this week about the Abraham Accords is why this regional "peace deal" doesn't seem to be supported by actual regional peace and human rights activists.  

The "experts" on the Middle East have been proven to be completely and totally wrong in their analysis, which incidentally has not changed at all since 1995. 

In their universe, Palestinians who are dedicated to destroying Israel should have veto power over anything Israel does with any Arab state.

And for the years of the Obama administration, that is exactly how things were. 

Then, Gulf states realized that their slavish dedication to supporting Palestinians who couldn't even solve their own internal split was counterproductive - and that partnering with Israel would bring great benefits.

So then the largest sea change in the Israeli-Arab conflict since Camp David happened - the Abraham Accords. 

These "experts" were really upset that their formula didn't work, and they keep trying to shoehorn a radically changed Middle East into their old thinking, since they really have no imagination beyond "Israel bad, Palestinians good."

Hilariously, Duss resorts to saying that the "experts" - human rights activists who spend a large percentage of their time demonizing Israel - don't support the Abraham Accords, so therefore they must be meaningless.

Never in their wildest dreams can these blowhards consider that they have been wrong since - well, forever. 

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A Palestinian Senate scorecard has some surprising results

The antisemitic American Muslims for Palestine has a lobbying arm called AJP Action. 

They recently released a scorecard for members of the Senate where they score them on how much they believe they support their cause. They base the scorecard on these criteria:

If they opposed S.1751 - Emergency Resupply for IRON DOME Act of 2021

If they supported S.J.Res.19 - Congressional disapproval defense support of Israel

Opposing S.1061 Israel Normalization Act of 2021

Opposing Combating BDS Act (H.R.336)

Opposing S.Res.120 - anti-BDS act

Supporting a letter urging Israel to provide Covid vaccines to Palestinians

Signing a letter supporting Gaza Aid (includes urging Israel to open Gaza border)

Signing a letter supporting sanctions on Israelis associated with NSO Group

Not signing a letter for the full cooperation of US and Israel on missile defense

Not signing a letter to Halt UNRWA Funding

Not attending AIPAC convention

It is quite clear that these criteria aren't "pro-Palestinian" but anti-Israel. 

The scorecard results shows a mix of Democrats and Republicans who get a failing score of F. Democrats with the most pro-Israel scores include Amy Klobuchar and Jacky Rosen.

Of course Bernie Sanders gets an A. But Mitt Romney gets a B, Ted Cruz gets a C.

Other prominent names include Elizabeth Warren (A), Chuck Schumer (B), Rand Paul (B), Jon Ossoff (A), Mitch McConnell (B), Marco Rubio (F), and Patrick Leahy (A).

Whether or not this is a reasonably accurate proxy for how these politicians think about Israel is up for debate. But it is definitely useful tool for the pro-Israel crowd as well as the other side!

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02/27 Links Pt2: David Collier: SOAS opens its doors to EUROPAL and neo-Nazi antisemitism; Condition of Monsey stabbing victim improves; Lessons from London: You can't fix jihad

From Ian:

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The 11% Majority

Bernie didn’t just oppose America’s Cold War excesses. He was often on the other side. America’s actions in Vietnam, he told a classroom of impressionable youngsters in 1972, were “almost as bad as what Hitler did.” In 1980, when Americans were tying yellow ribbons to express solidarity with our diplomats held hostage in Iran, Sanders aligned himself with the Socialist Workers Party, hosting an event at which its presidential candidate condemned “anti-Iranian hysteria around the U.S. hostages.”

As mayor of Burlington, Sanders earned the sobriquet “Foreign Minister” for the series of Potemkin village tours he took of America’s socialist adversaries abroad. When a constituent wrote a letter complaining about his words of praise for the Nicaraguan Sandinista regime, which had incarcerated thousands of political prisoners and forcibly relocated native tribes, Sanders responded, “The temporary suspension of certain civil liberties is considerably more complex than your letter indicates.” Sanders is like the guy we all knew in college with the Che Guevara T-shirt. Except, at 78, he’s still that guy.

When Alexander Solzhenitsyn moved to Vermont, Sanders never once met with the man whose personal testimony of the gulag won him the Nobel Prize for literature. But he did make time to travel halfway across the world to yuk it up with Solzhenitsyn’s jailers in the Soviet Union. After venturing to Cuba, a one-party state that interned homosexuals in concentration camps, Sanders returned awestruck. “I did not see a hungry child,” he gushed. “I did not see any homeless people. Cuba today not only has free health care but very high-quality health care.” (Indeed, Cuban health care is so “high-quality” that a cancer-stricken Fidel Castro summoned a Spanish doctor to treat him.)

While ritual self-flagellation is always demanded of Joe Biden for his single vote authorizing the Iraq War, Sanders’ opponents are oddly reluctant to ask him about his decadeslong record of propagandizing on behalf of leftist tyrants and mass murderers. Nor can these political commitments be waived off as mere youthful indiscretions. Sanders instinctually sides with any foreign head of state or revolutionary leader deemed “progressive,” no matter how autocratic or ruthless.

Sanders and the breach of the political dam

Although he criticized Israel over numerous issues in the late 1980s and early 90s, in this election campaign the senator from Vermont has embarked on a path of utter extremism (representing an escalation even in terms of his 2016 performance, when he vied for the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton). Amid the backdrop of this increasingly acerbic trend, which pushes Sanders closer to the militant and anti-Semitic fringes of the Democratic party, spearheaded by Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, it must now be asked: Is the era of fundamental bi-partisan consensus regarding Israel over? Is the special relationship with Israel no longer an integral part of the collective American ethos?

After all, since Israel became a strong partner and important strategic asset for the US some six decades ago, declaring support for the Jewish state has become an inseparable component of every American politician's toolbox, irrespective of party affiliations. Today, however, the dam has been breached. The fact that a leading Democratic candidate so readily castigates (and not for the first time) the prime minister of Israel, calling him a "reactionary racist," and also indicates his intention – if, of course, he's elected president – to move the US Embassy back to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem, makes it abundantly obvious that a prominent faction within the Democratic camp has fundamentally shifted its approach to Israel. It is within this prism that we must view the liberal wing's dangerous maturation and ultimate separation from its Israeli ally (and from the political center), the roots of which stretch all the way back to the 1980s and which have become increasingly intertwined in recent years with the contrarian and belligerent rhetoric of Jeremy Corbyn – who represents a type of role model for Sanders, and not just in terms of Israel.

Meanwhile, the Republican party in recent decades has become the sturdy backbone and anchor of support for Israel and the special relationship with it; evidenced by the eight years of George W. Bush's presidency, not to mention the three years of Donald Trump's current term. Simultaneously, the Democratic party has been in the process of drifting to the fringes, with Sanders the most outspoken and obvious symbol of the overt turn away from Israel and the strategic partnership with it predicated on shared values; and he is certainly not an outlier in the current liberal landscape.

Within this context, we must look at reality square in the eye and recognize the fact that underground political streams long bubbling beneath the surface have erupted mightily to the fore of American politics, mortally threatening the broad security blanket against any challenge Israel has had to face over the decades. If and how quickly this tsunami completely drowns out the centrist faction of the Democratic party fighting to stave Sanders off (for example, Michael Bloomberg and Joe Biden) – and drags us toward any number of unsavory scenarios – is, of course, a separate question that will soon be answered.

David Collier: SOAS opens its doors to EUROPAL and neo-Nazi antisemitism

SOAS are hosting a purveyor of Nazi and KKK antisemitic theory on March 7. The event is billed as a student workshop offering advocacy for ‘Palestine’, however this Hamas linked group -EUROPAL – has previously published a booklet pushing hard-core neo-Nazi antisemitism

SOAS is known as a hotbed of antisemitism. It has the dishonour of being a university in central London where Jewish students have said they are ‘scared to wear the star of David and speak Hebrew’. For years SOAS has been at the forefront of hostile campus activity. I have seen too many toxic events to list them all – terrorists are honoured there and platforms given to an endless stream of antisemitic speakers.

But surely – there has to be a line they won’t cross – even at SOAS? It seems not. In two weeks they are hosting an event by an organisation -EUROPAL – that has been caught before spreading antisemitism. To turn disrespect for Jews into absolute mockery – EUROPAL are on campus at SOAS to teach students about – yes, you guessed it – antisemitism.

The all-day event – due to be held on March 7 – is described as a ‘student workshop’ – teaching other students how to be better advocates for ‘Palestine’. It is co-hosted by the SOAS Palestine Society. The first two sessions to be presented are about method, delivery and BDS – which means they will be full of the usual lies and propaganda we are all used to. It remains heart-breaking that students are fed this type of ahistorical and demonising garbage in a place of learning – but nothing new for SOAS. The real problem arises in the third session – which is about ‘antisemitism’:

EUROPAL are teaching students about antisemitism, which means that this event isn’t about the history of a conflict, or anti-Israel advocacy, but rather explicitly talking about anti-Jewish racism. So who are EUROPAL and why are they qualified to hold events about antisemitism?

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Bernie Sanders Hates Israel, Doesn’t Think Jews Have the Right to Build Homes in Their Indigenous Territory (Judean Rose)

On Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Israeli settlements, in the view of the Trump administration, are not illegal. Bernie Sanders, a Jew, was quick to contradict this Israel-friendly message, stating as if it were fact rather than opinion, the opposite viewpoint. Israeli settlements, tweeted Sanders, are illegal. 

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Israeli settlements in occupied territory are illegal. This is clear from international law and multiple United Nations resolutions. Once again, Mr. Trump is isolating the United States and undermining diplomacy by pandering to his extremist base. https://t.co/Vz5NNpKIVB

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) November 18, 2019

Pompeo’s remarks were thoughtful and nuanced. Sanders’ tweet, on the other hand, was a condemnation, a pointed finger full of repudiation and blame. Pompeo spoke of peace and resolution, while Sanders used his platform to take a dig at Trump, accusing the president of “pandering to his extremist base.”

If we were to take a crack at what Sanders might mean by “extremist base,” it would be easy to arrive at the Evangelical community, a large voting sector that turned out strongly for Trump in 2016. This is as opposed to the Jews, who, at just 3% of the voting population, cannot be any kind of voting base, extremist or otherwise. White evangelicals do indeed care deeply about Israel and are willing to use their voting clout on her behalf. Jews (except perhaps for the orthodox, who represent only 11% of American Jewry), on the other hand, don’t see Israel as an electoral issue.

But when Bernie Sanders speaks of extremists, he’s not really speaking of a specific sector or community, not of Christians or Jews, but of all God-fearing people who pray and read the bible. Because Sanders knows that they are the ones who still hold fast to the idea that Judea and Samaria belong to the Jewish people. To Sanders, who appears to be a person who repudiates religion, in particular his own, the entire idea that people are entitled to territory and self-determination in their land based on their religion alone, is disgusting and elitist. In particular, it is disgusting for a Jew to feel this way: that he has rights to Israel by virtue of having descended from people with beards and payos.*

Sanders also spoke of "occupied territory." But the entire idea of an occupation is problematic since the land was restored to the Jewish people during a defensive war. Israel didn't just march in to accomplish a land grab. We were fighting for our lives, repelling invading armies that were attempting to wipe out the State of Israel and Jewish Israelis. At any rate, how is it possible for a people to "occupy" land that already belongs to them from ancient times? The connection of the land to the Jewish people is documented many times over.

But let's stipulate for argument's sake that Israel is the "occupying" power in the territory in question. The relevant clause of international law relating to occupation and settlement speaks of people being transferred or deported by the occupying power, in order to create facts on the ground. Israel did not deport anyone, and there was no transfer of people to the area. The Jews who settled in Judea and Samaria (and Jerusalem), came there of their own free will. They desired to live there because of the ancient Jewish connection to the land. No one forced them to live there. Judea and Samaria burned in their hearts. They yearned to be there.

Regarding the legal arguments, respected jurists such as Eugene Rostow, Julius Stone, Eugene Kontorovich, and Avi Bell have all ruled that Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria is legal. At the very least, Sanders might have acknowledged the strong body of proof these experts have offered in support of the idea that settlement is legal. Then it would be his right to counter and state that in his opinion, settlement is illegal, offering relevant arguments to support his theory. Instead, knowing nothing whatsoever about the law and certainly not as it applies to the settlement project, Sanders put his foot down, stating as if it were fact that settlements are illegal, completely ruling out the idea that, hey: It might be okay for Jews to build homes in their indigenous territory. Some pretty important jurists think so.

But to Sanders, you see, the legalistic debate around settlement is immaterial. He knows and cares nothing about the law, because let's face it: Bernie Sanders is no legal expert. He never studied law.

In his early professional life, for instance, Sanders worked as a Head Start teacher, a psychiatric aide, and carpenter. He wrote socialist propaganda and created “radical film strips.” The sum total of Sanders' knowledge of international law is surely into negative numbers. And he knows that, which is why, in his tweet he deferred vaguely to “international law” and the “UN” without offering any legal argument or substance to back his claims that settlements are illegal.

The law, it seems, is only a fig leaf for Sanders to hide what he feels about religion and perhaps more  particularly, about Judaism. More generally, it seems that from Sanders' purview, religious devotion is a disgusting concept, so disgusting that he can’t get past what he must see as the horrors of the bible to get to the bigger picture of why there is nothing wrong with Jewish settlement.

Because there is nothing wrong with Jewish settlement.

Like Sanders, I am no jurist. So I think of this issue in simple terms. The Jews are the indigenous people of Israel with thousands of years of connection. The very name of Judea means “Jew.” It’s where we’re from.

No one needs the Bible to know this. Because if you’re not a believer, there are history books. There are archaeological artifacts. The Western Wall in Jerusalem is real. You can touch it.

Connection and history aside, how does it hurt anyone for Jews to build homes for themselves? What could possibly be wrong with that? Jews don’t deserve shelter? A roof over their heads?

And this business of settlements being an obstacle to peace? What narishkeit.† We expelled thousands of our own people from Gaza during Disengagement, and dug up our dead, too, all for the sake of peace. Homes stopped nothing. Because homes don’t get in the way of peace. Terror gets in the way of peace.

Judea and Samaria, our ancestral territory, was restored to us during the course of a defensive war. We built homes on uninhabited hilltops. We displaced no one in the building of settlement homes.

And they are homes. Nothing more. Homes go up, and can also be torn down, God forbid. 

The question Bernie Sanders should be asking himself is why anyone objects to Jews building homes in Judea and Samaria, or anywhere else, for that matter. Why is the EU outraged at the thought of Jews building homes for themselves in Judea and Samaria or producing, God forbid, wine? Why are Arabs so appalled at the thought of Jews providing themselves with shelter? What is the problem that all of these people have with the Jews?

Why can’t they just let them be?

What is the source of Sanders’ loathing for his own people? Was there some sort of trauma in early childhood? Is he embarrassed by the herring and kichel, the chanting and swaying back and forth, the refusal of these stubborn people to go away already??

"Why won’t they just die out," you can almost hear him wondering, "so I can be like everyone else in a world where everyone is the same, united. Accepted."

These “extremists” just refuse to get with the plan. The plan that crowns Bernie king of the world, no longer a Jew, just a man of the people, or perhaps a demi-god.

The good news is that this will never happen. Because Sanders hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of becoming president of the United States of America. He's just too out there and old.

Bernie can make a schrei, and scream all he likes, but ain't no one going to force the Jews out of Judea and Samaria.

We've come home for good. Because whether Bernie likes it or not, this time we're not leaving.

We're not going anywhere at all.

*sidecurls

†foolishness 

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Why is Bernie Sanders such a magnet for antisemites? (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

One thing you can say about Bernie Sanders: He sure does have some unexpected friends and admirers.

Bernie Sanders and Farrakhan

Farrakhan was very clear in 2016 that he was not supporting Bernie Sanders.
You won't find him supporting Sanders for president now either.

And yet in 2016 Farrakhan went out of his way not to attack him as one of those "Satanic Jews".
According to Farrakhan, Bernie Sanders is one of those "decent" Jews:

"I have to say this about Mr. Sanders: he's a Jew, not a so-called Jew. He's trying to be decent..."

Bernie Sanders and Sharpton

'Nuff said.

Bernie Sanders and Ilhan Omar

Earlier this year, Omar attacked AIPAC and accused her Jewish fellow Congressmen of dual loyalty:

Bernie Sanders wasted no time. During a conference call hosted by James Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute, Sanders confirmed that he had talked to Omar that night to give her his support.

Of course, it did not take long for Omar to again accuse Jews of dual loyalty:

But that did not dissuade Sanders. In June, Teen Vogue had a piece on how Bernie Sanders Teamed Up With Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal on a Plan to Cancel All Student Loan Debt

Bernie Sanders and James Zogby

In Lovable Bernie Whacks Israel, Charles Krauthammer wrote in 2016 that

two of Sanders' appointments to the 15-member platform committee are so stunning. Professor Cornel West not only has called the Israeli prime minister a war criminal, but openly supports the BDS movement (boycott, divestment and sanctions), the most important attempt in the world to ostracize and delegitimize Israel.

West is joined on the committee by the longtime pro-Palestinian activist James Zogby. Together, reported The New York Times, they "vowed to upend what they see as the party's lopsided support of Israel." [emphasis added]

Actually, lopsided would an apt description of Zogby's defense of Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorists.

In 2006, Zogby defended Hezbollah's use of human shield's:

Zogby: I've said from the beginning that [Hezbollah's] behavior was reckless and provocative. But Israel bears the responsibility. It's like saying what Mort is saying and what those who want to make that case is saying, the girl who wore the short skirt deserved to get raped--

James Taranto commented:

Zogby's claim that Hezbollah bears no responsibility for civilian casualties is outrageous, and his likening of Hezbollah to a rape victim is scandalously so.

Elder of Ziyon quotes this example and gives another, one of Zogby defending Yasir Arafat. In an interview with Paula Zahn on CNN:

ZAHN: Mr. Zogby, how much responsibility do you think Yasser Arafat should bear for the ongoing troubles in the Middle East?

ZOGBY: Well, listen, it's -- we live in a kind of an "Alice in Wonderland" world here, where Ariel Sharon is the man of peace and Arafat becomes the obstacle to peace. We've lionized one and demonized the other, and I simply don't think this picture is accurate. The man has flaws...

Imagine a world where Ariel Sharon removes every last Israeli from Gaza and gives it, along with the infrastructure intact, to Hamas while Arafat rejects Clinton's attempt to forge a peace deal -- this is the "Wonderland" Zogby inhabits. Arafat did not have flaws -- he was responsible for the deaths of unarmed civilians because they were Jews.

Bernie Sanders and Cornel West

Krauthammer writes about Cornel West:

West doesn't even pretend, as do some left-wing "peace" groups, to be opposing Israeli policy in order to save it from itself. He makes the simpler case that occupation is unconscionable oppression and that until Israel abandons it, Israel deserves to be treated like apartheid South Africa -- anathematized, cut off, made to bleed morally and economically.

Like Zogby, Cornel West, a BDS proponent, also makes excuses for Palestinian terrorism, writing that  the actions of Hamas “pale in the face of the US-supported Israeli slaughter of innocent civilians.” West once accused President Obama of being “most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want.”

Of course, Bernie Sanders is different.

Bernie Sanders and Linda Sarsour

Last weekend, Sanders made Sarsour his surrogate, allowing her to campaign on his behalf, creating a unique situation considering, as The Jerusalem Post put it, "that Sanders is Jewish and Sarsour is known as an anti-Israel, antisemitic activist."

Actually, what does he have to lose?
The Democrats have the Jewish vote anyway.

With Sarsour -- as with Simone Zimmerman before her -- Sanders can tap into the energy of progressives with minimal cost to a Jewish base which sided with Hillary anyway during the last election and is unlikely to flock to him this time around either. A poll in May showed Biden getting 47% of the Jewish vote among registered Democratic voters, compared to 11% for Sanders and Pete Buttigieg is doing better than either of them in terms of Jewish contributions.

Now we find out that 2 months ago, Sarsour -- along with Bob Bland and Tamika Mallory -- left the Woman's March.

This has been misinterpreted by some as a setback for Sarsour, and by extension, for Sanders:

If you check the article at The Hill, all it says is:

Women’s March has cut ties with three board members who were accused of anti-Semitism and has created a new, diverse board of 16 members

It does not actually say the reason for cutting ties was because of their antisemtism. The article in the Washington Post that The Hill refers to is more expansive on why Bland, Mallory and Sarsour left:

The Women’s March is replacing three inaugural board members who have been dogged by accusations of anti-Semitism, infighting and financial mismanagement.

That article also ties the issue of antisemitism not to Sarsour but to Mallory, who is a big supporter of Farrakhan.

Seth Mandel, editor of the Washington Examiner, was more on-target -- both Women's March in general and Sarsour in particular win:

Whether Sanders will benefit by this arrangement is an open question.

But Sarsour definitely has.

Bernie Sanders and Zahra Billoo

Among those who will be replacing Sarsour is Zahra Billoo, a civil rights lawyer and the executive director of CAIR-SFBA.

She is also an antisemite.

As indicated by tweet

After tweet:

After tweet:

After tweet:

Check out Petra Marquardt-Bigman and Ryan Saavedra for many more such tweets.

And Billoo's hatred extends beyond just hatred of the state of Israel:

California imam Ahmed Billoo recently called for the mass extermination of Jews. Apparently impatient at the border-security protocols at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, he posted a prayer to Twitter with the hashtag "Zionists": "Oh God, reduce their numbers, exterminate them, and don't leave a single one alive."

Ahmed Billoo's sister is Zahra Billoo, director of the San Francisco branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). She is also an important figure in the Women's March movement, and has appeared alongside her brother at Women's March events.

...[Zahra Billoo] was curiously unwilling to offer any criticism when it came to her brother advocating mass-murder. On the contrary, Zahra Billoo made a heartfelt post to her brother on Facebook a mere few hours after he prayed for the extermination of Jews, apparently in relation to another public stand he had taken: "My brother makes me proud often, but there's a special kind of appreciation I have when he does this - puts his privilege to good use, asserting his rights, speaking out against border harassment, and thereby making it at least somewhat easier for those who are afraid or unable." [emphasis added]

And sure enough, Billoo is also a big fan of -- Bernie Sanders.

Bernie Sanders is a convenient shield for antisemites.

He is Jewish -- but does not advertise that fact.
Sanders rarely talks about it publicly.

He may support Israel, but he adopts the progressive narrative about the extent of Gazan casualties during war between Israel and Hamas, as well as the narrative that makes armed Gazan rioters trying to break through into Israel as nothing more than peaceful protestors.

Sanders is also on-board when it comes to condemning and leveraging aid in order to push Israel (and only Israel) to "make peace".

He boils the conflict down to the simplest terms:

Israel has a right to exist in security, and at the same time the Palestinians have a state of their own.

Who could argue with that?

To be fair, journalist Ron Kampeas finds Bernie Sanders to be typical of Jewish Americans:

Maybe Kampeas is right, and Sanders it typical.
But Sanders does come across as shy about his being a Jews and more defensive than most when it comes to Israel.

More to the point, I don't know if we can be so sanguine about this "norm" of Jewish American.
What really is so Jewish about being progressive?

Daniel Gordis writes that

most American Jews, having lost a sense of peoplehood and then a commitment to religion or Torah, have recently assumed an identity that is focused on little but politics. Yet as a form of politics, Judaism has, so far, found little to say that is uniquely Jewish.

Gordis concludes the thought rather darkly:

And if we have nothing unique to say, does it really matter if American Jews do not survive?

I would suggest that if we Jews in America cannot identify as Jews and feel unique as Jews, then there are those out there who will be only too happy to define our Jewish identity for their own purposes.

And the names of some of those people are on this page.

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