April 28 (EIRNS)—Calling anti-Semitism “vile and disgusting,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu for it with his mass-murderous “ethnic cleansing” campaign against Palestinians, “unprecedented in our modern history.” Sanders made his remarks in an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” April 28.
“Do I doubt, for a moment,” Sanders replied to the first of many provocations by host Dana Bash, “that anti-Semitism exists and is growing in the United States, and that it exists among some people in the protest movement?—of course. But here is the reality. Right now, what Netanyahu’s right-wing, extremist and racist government is doing, is unprecedented in the modern history of warfare. They have killed, in the last six months, 33,000 Palestinians, wounded 77,000, two-thirds of whom are women and children. They have destroyed over 60% of the housing. They have destroyed the healthcare system. They have destroyed the infrastructure—no electricity, very little water. And right now, we are looking at the possibility of mass starvation and famine in Gaza. When you make those charges, that is not anti-Semitic. That is reality.”
Bash, who had two videos from opposite ends of the United States—one of a single protester talking about Zionists having no rights; another of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) referring to “genocide”—could not shake Sanders from continual denunciations of Netanyahu’s regime. “I’m Jewish,” he said. “My father’s family were wiped out by Nazis. What Netanyahu is doing is ethnic cleansing, and it must be stopped.”