Sen. Bernie Sanders, (I-Vt.), speaks during a "Fighting Oligarchy" tour event at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona on March 20, 2025
Every poll in the United States and Europe reflects a steep rise in antisemitism, nationally and globally. Antisemitism—the oldest hatred—has been around for millennia. It is currently being fueled by the rise of Western progressivism, Arab petrol-dollars and an anti-white ideology that lumps Jews as white oppressors of Palestinians.
The distorted treatment of Israel on the world stage can be exemplified by a recent TV interview between Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and CNN news anchor Dana Bash. Sanders, echoing Hamas propaganda, blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and not the terrorists for the situation in the Gaza Strip. Of course, Sanders showed no empathy for the remaining Israeli hostages being starved in Hamas’s tunnels. Nor did he show much compassion for Israel, which experienced the trauma of Oct. 7 and the Hamas-led massacre that included decapitating babies, raping and murdering women, and killing children in front of their parents; crimes against Jews that haven’t been seen since the Holocaust.
Sanders accused Netanyahu and Israel of “going to war against the entire Palestinian people” and being responsible for “some 60,000 who are dead, most of whom are women and children and the elderly.”
The senator has accepted the unsubstantiated figures that Hamas has provided, even though Hamas’s casualty figures do not differentiate between Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters, the civilians they use as human shields, and Gazans executed for opposing Hamas or stealing food.
Asked if Hamas has any culpability, the Jewish senator’s response was no. Instead, he told Bash that “on top of all that human destruction … what Netanyahu does is impose a blockade preventing food to come in, and people are starving to death.”
Sanders’s assertion that Netanyahu is starving Palestinians in Gaza is a despicable lie. Hundreds of trucks filled with humanitarian aid at the Kerem Shalom border crossing have been turned over for distribution to the Gazans. Yet the United Nations, which is doing Hamas’s bidding, has done nothing but condemn Israel. Moreover, Israel has allowed food packages to be air-dropped into Gaza in coordination with the United States. Sanders should know all of this, but it appears he has chosen to ignore it for political reasons.
Sadly, some members of the Democratic Party who have always supported Israel because of its shared values with the United States are being intimidated by progressives in their party, including Congress members. These liberals are falling in line with the progressives’ rhetoric and are increasingly voting with them.
Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), leaders of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, have led antisemitic campaigns against Israel and America’s global interests. They, along with the rest of the progressive “Squad” in the U.S. House of Representatives are aided by Sanders, who, as a Jew, can counter any claims of antisemitism.
While Sanders condemned the murders of two young Israeli diplomats outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., in May, he has failed to denounce the ideology that drove the shooting that referenced “Free Palestine.” The senator has also refused to condemn Tlaib’s chants of “from the river to the sea Palestine must be free,” which are seen as tacit approval of the destruction of Israel.
What the senator from Vermont will never grasp is that Tlaib and Omar, along with their progressive bedfellows, are using him as a token against claims of Jew-hate. But their efforts will fail, and the State of Israel and Jews everywhere will—as they have for 2,000 years—overcome this wave of antisemitism as well.
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