Old Men Spreading Hate
At the December 19th US Presidential Debate, the Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, called the Prime Minister of Israel a “racist.” Not only did none of the other Democratic candidates object, Vice President Biden piled on by saying, “Bibi Netanyahu and I know one another well. He knows that I think what he's doing is outrageous.”
How is Netanyahu a racist? What exactly is Netanyahu doing that is “outrageous”? They didn’t say. They just didn’t want to miss the bash Israel train.
The current crop of candidates must be playing to that part of the Democratic party that becomes excited whenever one person calls another person a racist. That US politics has stooped to this level is tragic on so many levels.
First, because public figures such as Congresswoman Omar and Louis Farrakhan have maligned Jews, the number of occurrences of black Americans killing and harming Jewish people has skyrocketed. Sanders and others are quick to connect President Trump’s hateful rhetoric for inciting violence, yet they are silent when they call the Jewish Prime Minister a racist, a smear meant to trigger a visceral reaction, tugging on the memories of black Americans of white people burning crosses or denying a black person a seat on a bus or at a lunch counter.
These public figures will acknowledge that when you malign someone, you increase the likelihood of violence against them. Congresswoman Omar declared that any criticism of her is an incitement to violence. This is their hypocrisy; they attack Israel, call Jews racists, then remain silent when Black Americans attack Jewish people on subways, in their stores, or in their schools.
Not one of these candidates mentioned the recent attacks and murders around New York City, let alone condemned them. The Democratic debate was a great victory for BDS, antisemitism, and world terror. Because what starts out as an attack against Israel, the Jewish homeland, will not stay confined to global politics – it hits locally. I don’t need to predict a thing; I am just observing what has already happened.
Second, if an Israeli doesn’t like a Palestinian, that doesn’t make him a racist. Not every conflict in the world is defined by race. Since when are the Palestinians a race? They weren’t even a people until 1965 when President Nasser of Egypt and his Soviet handlers invented the “Palestinians” to keep the conflict against Israel alive.
As an Israeli Arab, my people never considered themselves Palestinians, even though my family has lived in what is now the heart of Israel for centuries. We are Arabs. Our ancestors came from Arabia to conquer and rule the lands in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. During the Ottoman Empire, when the Turks ruled over Arabs, we lived in Greater Syria. When the British named the region Mandatory Palestine, we still called ourselves Arabs who lived in Syria; anyone who called herself a Palestinian meant she was Jewish.
After the Jordanians took possession of Judea and Samaria, naming the area the West Bank of Jordan, Arabs called themselves Jordanians. At no time did they consider their nationality as Palestinian, but now, according to Senator Sanders, the Palestinians are a race.
Third, Sanders called for an equal playing field between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel. Then, let’s talk about racism (if Jews can be racist against Palestinians, then Palestinians can be racist against Jews.)
Where is the outcry when the presumed partner in any peace negotiation, PA president-for-life, Mahmoud Abbas:
calls the Munich Olympic massacre a “heroic operation,”
still pays terrorists hundreds of millions of dollars each year to murder Jews, and
siphons equal amounts of money from the Arab people, leaving families impoverished while he displays his obscene wealth?
When Abbas says Jews defile the Temple Mount with their “filthy feet,” why does no candidate for President of the US not call him out for his overt racism? When has Netanyahu ever said anything as vile as that?
I do not believe the American people will elect this millionaire devotee of Karl Marx, who announced on stage that he will nationalize the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. His views on the Middle East are similarly addled. I don’t know who it is that advises Sanders. It might be the young Congresswomen who support him. It might be Linda Sarsour. It might be Louis Farrakhan. But for the sake of the sole of America, and its standing as a leader of hope and justice for all, someone needs to call these candidates out for pandering to incitement and hypocrisy.