[rad-green] President of Zionist Organization of America attacks Bernie Sanders for advocating the conditioning of US military aid to Israel

*https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-f-brown/enfeebled-israel-lobby-strikes-back-military-aid
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-f-brown/enfeebled-israel-lobby-strikes-back-military-aid>*

*Electronic Intifada          6 November 2019*

*Enfeebled Israel lobby strikes back on military aid*
Many are so busy scouring social media for signs of anti-Semitism from the
left that they fail to take note when a member of the Israel lobby tweets
outrageous slurs against a man who would be the first Jewish president of
the United States — and is the most outspoken candidate on behalf of the
rights of Palestinians.*By Michael F. Brown*
[image: Man gesticulates]

*ZOA President Morton Klein has leveled an anti-Semitic attack against
Senator Bernie Sanders over the presidential candidate’s talk of
conditioning aid to Israel. Michael BrochsteinSIPA USA*

Morton Klein <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/morton-klein>, president
of the Zionist Organization of America
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/zionist-organization-america> (ZOA),
is furious with US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/bernie-sanders>.

Sanders has demonstrated the nerve to call
<https://twitter.com/People4Bernie/status/1188891626933874691> not just for
conditioning military aid to Israel, but for sending some of it – in the
form of humanitarian aid – to Palestinians in Gaza living under Israeli
siege and enduring the consequences of decades of dispossession.

The ZOA leader can’t stand the idea.

Klein claimed <https://twitter.com/MortonAKlein7/status/1189173429330685953> in
late October on Twitter that Sanders is “an anti-Semitic Israelophobe who
insanely demands taking defense money from Israel.”

He, along with many others
<https://theintercept.com/2019/11/01/bernie-sanders-palestine-aid-hamas/>,
then falsely maintained that Sanders wants to give that money to Hamas.

There’s not an iota of evidence for Klein’s claim. US aid money could
readily be directed through non-governmental organizations to people
needing humanitarian assistance in Gaza.

Moving from false rhetoric to vicious, Klein then added that Sanders has
“learned nothing from the lessons of the Holocaust during his 79 years on
earth.”

In fact, Sanders, who is 78, has spoken movingly
<https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/03/07/democratic-debate-flint-bernie-sanders-jewish-holocaust-08.cnn/video/playlists/2016-democratic-presidential-debates/>
about
his father’s family being “wiped out by Hitler in the Holocaust” and has
explicitly written
<https://twitter.com/berniesanders/status/692509770373271552>, “We vow
never to forget the lessons of that tragedy and to stand up to all forms of
hate.”

Klein, for his part, has also spoken powerfully against the horrors of the
Holocaust against Jews, other groups and his own family. He has asserted
<https://zoa.org/2017/04/10360529-zoas-mort-klein-child-of-holocaust-survivors-remembers-the-six-million-lost-and-praises-presidential-statement/>
his
organization will “speak out against prejudice, and irrational hatred and
violence against any people in all corners of the world.”

Yet, he has built a career out of vilifying Palestinians and Arabs in
strongly racist language.

Klein even seems to think he and a right-wing Twitter friend get to make
the rules on what sort of Jews are really Jews. Picking up on a response to
his tweet against Sanders, Klein was the one person as of publication to
retweet a claim from “Sam” that Sanders is “a Jew genetically, but it ends
there. That’s the worst kind.”

This sort of anti-Semitism presumably will do very little to lead
Republicans to think twice about inviting Klein back to testify on Capitol
Hill
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-f-brown/congressional-hearing-jerusalem-shuts-out-palestinians>
.

For all those piling on to Congresswomen Ilhan Omar
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ilhan-omar> and Rashida Tlaib
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/rashida-tlaib> for how they voice
concerns about the lack of equal rights for Palestinians and the role of
the Israel lobby in promoting discrimination against Palestinians, there
hasn’t been a peep against Klein for his outburst.

Many are so busy scouring social media for signs of anti-Semitism from the
left that they fail to take note when a member of the Israel lobby tweets
outrageous slurs against a man who would be the first Jewish president of
the United States — and is the most outspoken candidate on behalf of the
rights of Palestinians.
Policy fight

Sanders voiced the strongest support of any candidate for conditioning US
military aid to Israel when he spoke last week at J Street’s
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/j-street> annual conference.

But so have candidates Elizabeth Warren
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/elizabeth-warren>, Pete Buttigieg
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/peter-buttigieg> and (minimally)
Julian Castro, notwithstanding profound limitations
<https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1189235447328845824> in their
perspectives on how to advance Palestinian rights.

With Sanders leading the way, Democratic candidates are at long last
engaging the party in a fight over US military aid to Israel following over
50 years of occupation and 70 years of dispossession of Palestinians.

Pushback against these nascent efforts did not take long to emerge.

Joe Biden <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/joe-biden>, for months the
Democratic presidential front-runner, is hitting back and arguing for
business as usual.

The Democratic establishment favorite, Biden told Sabrina Siddiqui of *The
Wall Street Journal* that leveraging military aid to Israel would be
“absolutely outrageous” and a “gigantic mistake.”

He is not alone in defending an arrangement that for decades has
contributed to the ongoing subjugation of Palestinians.

Forward opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/batya-ungar-sargon> retweeted a
lengthy Twitter thread from Dan Shapiro
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/dan-shapiro>, an Obama administration
ambassador to Israel.

Touting his commentary as a “really important thread,” she claimed Shapiro
“corrects some of the misinformation out there about aid to Israel.”

In fact, Shapiro simply argues for more of the same when he writes: “The US
has provided Israel with military assistance for decades” before adding
that the aid “reflects both a moral commitment between allies and a shared
strategic interest.”

He ignores the immorality of bombing Palestinian civilians with American
weaponry when he asserts that “Much of the assistance dollars flow back to
the US economy, by funding Israeli purchases of major US-origin military
systems like F-15s, F-16s, F-35s, helicopters and other air platforms,
munitions, etc.”

Nevertheless, and despite the protestations of Biden, Shapiro and
Bungar-Sargon, Democrats such as Sanders are now seeking to move the party
away from long-existing policies that deny Palestinians their rights.
Democratic politicians questioning aid to Israel over Gaza, settlements
and/or annexation are showing they are attuned to change at the grassroots
level.

A September poll
<https://www.dataforprogress.org/memos/israel-palestine-2020> from Data for
Progress found that 41 percent of Democrats “strongly support” the idea of
“reducing military aid to Israel based on human rights violations” and
another 22 percent of Democrats “somewhat support” this approach

AIPAC, evidently alarmed by the new Democratic Party debate, tweeted a
defense of aid:

And Democratic Majority for Israel
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/democratic-majority-israel> has shown
that in this fight it favors the regressive stance of Biden.

Yet the organization seems incapable of stopping the Democratic rush for
the door. The antiquated tendency to show greater concern for protecting
military aid than ending myriad Israeli injustices against Palestinians
simply doesn’t fly with progressive Democrats.

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