Obama
is Gone, But the Democrats’ Israel Problem is Only Getting Worse
By Noah Pollak
Washington Free
Beacon
April 2, 2018
On Saturday, Bernie Sanders observed Passover by shilling
for Hamas.
The Gaza terrorist group had spent weeks planning a violent
demonstration on the border with Israel. The goal was to get Palestinians killed
in front of the international media, in order to elicit condemnation of Israel.
It worked, and largely because of people like Bernie Sanders.
Hamas sent more than 20,000 civilians to the border
intermixed with its terror cells, which attempted to infiltrate the border,
place explosives on it, and attack IDF soldiers. Eighteen
are now dead, a majority of them members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Bernie Sanders then went on Twitter and TV to go all-in on
Hamas's deadly media game:
Needless to say, not a single Palestinian would be dead
today if Hamas hadn't staged this confrontation. And those killed by the IDF
were not "demonstrators," if that word still has any meaning. And it
would be interesting to know what "better future" Sanders believes
Hamas seeks, insofar as the group's charter calls for the killing of all Jews
worldwide. Maybe they'll make an exception for Jewish senators from Vermont who
are useful idiots.
On Sunday, Jake
Tapper asked Sanders to comment on Israel's claim that Hamas terrorists
were operating from among the "demonstrators." Bernie stuck to his
guns: "From what my understanding is, you have tens of thousands of people
who are engaged in nonviolent protest." His defiance may delight
progressives, but Bernie is making a fool of himself. There are video and pictures of
Hamas instigating violence, and it has been thoroughly
documented—including
by Hamas itself—that 11 of the 18 dead were young male operatives of Hamas
and Islamic Jihad terror cells.
On a moral level, Bernie is helping create a political and
media environment that incentivizes Hamas attacks on Israel, which result
overwhelmingly in the deaths of Palestinians, not Israelis.
But on a political level, Bernie is damaging Democrats.
President Obama's emotional and ideological need to pillory Israel accomplished
nothing for his presidency, and it certainly did not help Democrats raise money
or win elections. Sanders' anti-Israel activism may end up being worse for the
Party, because it is more vicious and even less based in reality than Obama's,
and because Bernie will set much of the agenda for Democrats in 2020.
His progressive supporters love that he's standing up to
big, bad Israel. But progressive hatred of Israel is not fact-based—it is an
emotional obsession that relies for its energy on presenting a false reality, as
Sanders did over the weekend.
An overwhelming majority of Americans, and even most Democrats, do not share progressivism's increasingly virulent obsession with Israel. Democrats with national aspirations should be concerned that Obama's animosity is now crossing the line, via Sanders, to a position that is so embarrassingly detached from reality that it is impossible to spin. Time will tell whether Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and other 2020 hopefuls walk into the trap Bernie is setting for them, and endorse ridiculous lies about Israel that please a very narrow demographic of far-left activists. They need only look to the Corbynization of Labour to see the future that may await their Party.