THE NEWS SAYS
Bernie Sanders fancies himself a brave truth-teller on Israel. As they say in Brooklyn, it’s a pile of dreck.
In the midst of a competitive New York primary, Brooklyn born-and-bred Bernie Sanders fancies himself a brave truth-teller by decrying Israel’s response to Hamas terrorism and promising to sympathize with Palestinians should he win the White House. As they say in Brooklyn, it’s a pile of dreck. Sanders, who simultaneously proclaims himself to be “100% pro-Israel,” insists he’s only standing up for the long-trampled dignity of the Palestinian people — a dignity he falsely insists the United States denies.
His remarks in Thursday’s Brooklyn debate with Hillary Clinton, like his appearance before the Daily News Editorial Board this month, revealed him to be dangerously naive about the realities of the region.
While repeating the boilerplate that Israel has the right to defend her people, Sanders undermined that assertion by insisting against the evidence that the Jewish state’s response to Hamas attacks from Gaza in 2014 was “disproportionate and led to the unnecessary loss of innocent life.”
Yes, that summer’s Gaza war was terrible — and it was all the fault of Hamas for starting the bloodshed by lobbing thousand of rockets into Israel. When Israel finally moved the stop the rain of terror, Hamas got the propaganda points it sought by seeking to maximize casualties and casting Israel as a rampaging monster.
Israel went to great pains, nearly unheard of in warfare, to avoid civilian casualties. Because of the immoral and illegal way Hamas positions its fighters and arsenal near mosques, hospitals and schools, some were nevertheless inevitable.
So taken in was Sanders and focused on Hamas’ pumped-up Gaza casualty numbers that the candidate infamously — and wrongly — told this Editorial Board that 10,000 Gazans were killed, when that was the statistic for the injured. (The real number, if you believe the UN: about 1,500.)
Though Sanders got his statistics correct in the debate, he then goaded Clinton to agree that Israel was out of line. To her credit, the former secretary of state refused to play his game, rightly asserting the truth that Hamas started the 2014 fighting — and every other round beforehand — and invited Israeli blows it could then crow about.
But Sanders wasn’t finished. He said, “We cannot continue to be one-sided. There are two sides to the issue.” Sorry, Bernie, there are not two sides to the truth.
Bernie Sanders has broken barriers by being most successful Jewish candidate to ever seek the presidency. But that doesn’t make him good for Israel or America.
New Yorkers, Jews and gentiles alike, should back Hillary Clinton on Tuesday.