Sen. Bernie Sanders has released an essay billed as plan a to “fight anti-Semitism.” In reality, it’s a plan to excuse anti-Semitism he finds politically inconvenient.
In the essay at Jewish Currents, Sanders writes about his Jewish background and the troubling rise of anti-Semitic attacks, but he refuses to acknowledge that anti-Semitism comes in many forms, including a strain that comes from the political Left.
Sanders rightly draws attention to the rise in anti-Semitic attacks both nationally and in New York City. But then he pivots to painting the perpetrators with a broad brush, saying it is the “result of a dangerous political ideology that targets Jews and anyone who does not fit a narrow vision of a whites-only America.”
This is actually an easy way to frame an extremely complex issue. In New York City, for instance, there is actual security footage of a number of the attacks, and they don’t show some sudden uptick of skinhead gangs roaming Brooklyn. In fact, the attackers have been predominantly black and Hispanic. This isn’t to dismiss white supremacist violence, either, of course. But it’s just to say that understanding anti-Semitism requires understanding that it isn’t confined to one particular race or ethnic group or ideology. This is a reality Sanders refuses to acknowledge.
In his essay, he argues that it’s actually offensive that anybody would accuse somebody on the Left of being anti-Semitic. “Opposing antisemitism is a core value of progressivism,” Sanders writes. “So it’s very troubling to me that we are also seeing accusations of antisemitism used as a cynical political weapon against progressives.”
In reality, examples of anti-Semitism are rampant on the Left, especially on college campuses and in activist circles. The Women’s March was torn apart by anti-Semitism among its leadership. One of the anti-Semitic leaders, Linda Sarsour, who has argued that women who support Israel should have no place in the feminist movement, is a surrogate for Sanders.
Sanders acknowledges abstractly “that some criticism of Israel can cross the line into antisemitism, especially when it denies the right of self-determination to Jews, or when it plays into conspiracy theories about outsized Jewish power.” As if he’s taking a brave stand, he claims, “I will always call out antisemitism when I see it.” But it’s easy to “call out” anti-Semitism when it involves condemning white supremacists. Yet when calling it out would require criticizing his own side and actually taking a political risk, he suddenly turns a blind eye.
It’s hard to see how Rep. Ilhan Omar’s style of criticism of Israel could have more explicitly played into “conspiracy theories about outsized Jewish power” than when she claimed that Israel “hypnotized the world,” that congressional support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins,” and that “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country.” Sanders not only defended Omar at the time, but he has since proudly paraded her endorsement.
Sanders goes on an extended discussion on why Jews have to understand how painful Israel’s creation was to Palestinians. He also absurdly claims, “The forces fomenting antisemitism are the forces arrayed against oppressed people around the world, including Palestinians; the struggle against antisemitism is also the struggle for Palestinian freedom.” This is a completely ridiculous statement that helpfully excuses the role that Palestinians and their allies have done to foment global anti-Semitism for decades.
Fighting a problem means confronting it in all forms and on all fronts. Sanders only wants to take the easy path of condemning the forms of anti-Semitism that are acceptable to condemn within his political coalition. Instead of challenging those within his tent, he does something even worse. He tries to use his Jewish background as a shield to protect political allies spewing hate, thus enabling the spread of anti-Semitism.
