Sanders Could Be Harshest Israel Critic to Occupy Oval Office

(Bloomberg) — Bernie Sanders could become America’s first Jewish president, and yet he’d also be the harshest critic of the Jewish state ever to occupy the White House.

As a candidate, it’s creating tension with organizations that back Israel and with Jewish voters who’ve traditionally been a mainstay of the Democratic Party, while drawing Muslim voters in key states like Michigan to his diverse and growing coalition.

As president, it could fundamentally shift a half-century of U.S-Israeli relations, in which the White House rarely criticized Israeli policies in public and almost always took Israel’s side in a dispute. While President Barack Obama had a turbulent relationship with long-time Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sanders’s rhetoric suggests a deeper divide.

“He is in a box all of his own when it comes to Israel,” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East peace negotiator in Democratic and Republican administrations. “If he were to become president, you might see him deciding to call settlements illegal. He could set strict conditions on American military assistance to Israel. What is certain, though, is that a Sanders presidency would represent a more combative U.S. stance toward Israel.”

Criticism of Netanyahu

Sanders, 78, called Netanyahu a “reactionary racist” in last week’s Democratic presidential debate for his treatment of Palestinians. The comment prompted a rare public rebuke from Israel’s foreign minister.

Sanders decided, as he did in 2016, to skip making a speech to the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference in Washington beginning Sunday. He’s denounced the group as a platform “for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights.”

The Vermont senator says that he firmly believes in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and that the U.S. will remain an ally of Israel.

But he uses words like “occupation” to describe Israel’s presence in Palestinian territories that many Democrats have avoided.

In January after President Donald Trump proposed his Israel-Palestinian peace plan — which Netanyahu embraced and Palestinian leaders rejected — Sanders laid out his own demands for what the agreement should contain.

“It must end the Israeli occupation and enable Palestinian self-determination in an independent state of their own alongside a secure Israel,” Sanders tweeted. “Trump’s so-called ‘peace deal’ doesn’t come close, and will only perpetuate the conflict. It is unacceptable.”

Trump’s Embrace

Sanders, who spent time on an Israeli kibbutz — a communal farm — in the 1960s, argues that his Jewish values inform his drive to improve the lives of all people, including the Palestinians.

After the tense Obama years, Trump has thoroughly embraced Netanyahu’s approach to governing, moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, and offered the pro-Israel peace plan.

Like Obama, Sanders argues for an approach that takes the state of the Palestinian people into account far more than in previous administrations, even as he says Israeli security is paramount.

“I happen to believe that what our foreign policy in the Mideast should be about is absolutely protecting the independence and security of Israel,” he said in the debate last week in Las Vegas. “But you cannot ignore the suffering of the Palestinian people.”

‘Whole New Level’

David Harris, chief executive officer of the American Jewish Committee, said Sanders’s candidacy has elevated a leftist view on Israel to a “whole new level of magnitude.”

Sanders has the vocal support of Representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who are Muslim and critical of Israel. He was endorsed by Emgage PAC, which calls itself the nation’s largest Muslim political action committee in the country.

The congresswomen also share his progressive views on domestic policy and their support is only partly driven by Palestinian issues.

In Omar’s endorsement video of Sanders, she didn’t explicitly mention the issue, but alluded to Israel when she said, “The senator is the only candidate that wants to make sure that we end our endless wars and will fight for human rights and hold everyone accountable, regardless of whether they are an ally or a foe.”

Omar has been criticized for comments that have been viewed as anti-Semitic. Sanders has defended her by saying “it’s not anti-Semitic to criticize a right-wing government in Israel.”

The liberal Jewish organization J Street has defended Sanders against attacks, while the older, more conservative American Israel Public Affairs Committee has denounced him.

Tikkun Olam

J Street has said the “vast majority of Democrats and American Jews” are “both supportive of Israel and strongly critical of the policies of the Netanyahu government and of Donald Trump.”

Many of the other Democrats running against Sanders for the nomination have espoused a more moderate approach, in keeping with the traditional U.S.-Israeli relationship.

For some left-leaning Jews who support Sanders, his political ideology evokes the Jewish ideal of “Tikkun Olam,” a Hebrew expression that translates roughly to a shared responsibility to repair the world.

Sanders often invokes the experiences of his father’s family, many of whom were killed in the Holocaust, when he accuses Trump of being a demagogue and a white nationalist.

Jeff Weaver, Sanders’s senior adviser, called him a “strong supporter of Israel.”

Impediment to Peace

“That doesn’t mean he supports all of the policies of the Israeli government, just like you can support America, and not be supporting everything Trump does,” Weaver told reporters after last week’s debate.

Sanders’s views on Israel are more in line with the international community than with many voters in the U.S. The United Nations, for example, considers Israel’s settlements on the West Bank an impediment to peace.

But the senator’s comments on Israel, like his praise of education in Fidel Castro’s Cuba in a “60 Minutes” interview last week, will be used against him in states like Florida.

Michael Bloomberg, the other major Jewish candidate in the race, told a largely Jewish crowd in Aventura, Florida, that if he’s elected, “you will never have to choose between supporting Israel and supporting our values here at home.”

(Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)

A recent poll of New York Democratic primary voters by Siena College found Sanders in last place with New York Jewish voters, with 6% support. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, led with 28% followed by Pete Buttigieg with 16% and Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren with 10% each.

In the end, though, Weaver argues, many Jews will be motivated by the historic nature of Sanders’ candidacy.

“We would hope that they would want to come out and see the first Jewish president elected in the United States of America,” Weaver said. “That would be a huge milestone.”

To contact the reporters on this story: David Wainer in New York at [email protected];Tyler Pager in Washington at [email protected]

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at [email protected], ;Wendy Benjaminson at [email protected], Larry Liebert, Ros Krasny

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