Imagine Bernie Sanders forgetting the exact numbers and blaming America for killing more than a million Iraqi civilians at war, rather than 200,000 – as one estimation concludes. Would you consider such a mistake a reasonable error from a person that is running for President of the United States? Would you suspect that his well-established disapproval of the US war in Iraq made him inflate the numbers preposterously? Would you say it is more likely that a candidate such as Sanders is always going to error in the same way – that is, inflating the numbers of people killed rather than deflating them?
As you might have heard, a few days ago Sanders argued that Israel killed more than 10,000 civilians in Gaza during the 2014 operation. That is a fantastic number – more than ten times the Israeli count (761), more than six times the count by Hamas (1617). Sanders said: “my recollection is over 10,000 innocent people were killed in Gaza. Does that sound right?” Well, it is not right. It is also not surprising. It would have been much more surprising for Sanders to assume that only 260 Gazan civilians were killed – a sixth of the Hamas count – than it was for him to exaggerate in such a way.
The fact that Sanders does not remember the numbers is one small problem with his position towards Israel and with his understanding of the Gaza war. The fact that he tends to assume the worst about Israel is another problem. But the most disturbing problem about Sanders’ posture is the possibility that such an interview helps him rather than hurts him in the Democratic campaign. Sanders certainly thinks it does, and maybe he has good reason to think so. Democratic support for Israel’s rounds of battle in Gaza has been meager, to put it mildly. They had reservations in 2009. They were even more critical in 2014.
And of course, this is not new. The support of Democratic voters for Israel has been lower than the support of Republican voters for quite a while. And whether Israel can reverse that trend and improve its stature with these voters is an open question. While some experts believe that by changing its policies Israel can do much better with Democratic voters, I have a more skeptical view of this trend. Surely, Israel could do a little better by avoiding mistakes and refraining from making unnecessarily annoying statements or moves. But can it do a lot better? The Sanders interview should make one pause: if to do better with Sanders means that Israel can no longer defend itself effectively from rocket attacks, then Israel’s image in Democratic circles that tilt toward Sanders will not improve any time soon.
Of course, Sanders does not say that Israel should not be defending itself from attacks. He says the opposite: “I lived in Israel. I have family in Israel. I believe 100% not only in Israel's right to exist, [but in its] right to exist in peace and security without having to face terrorist attacks.” But when asked about the way for Israel to achieve such a worthy goal, he does not give an answer: “You're asking me now to make not only decisions for the Israeli government but for the Israeli military, and I don't quite think I'm qualified to make decisions. But I think it is fair to say that the level of attacks against civilian areas…and I do know that the Palestinians, some of them, were using civilian areas to launch missiles, makes it very difficult. But I think most international observers would say that the attacks against Gaza were indiscriminate and that a lot of innocent people were killed who should not have been killed.”
Ah – “most international observers.” This would surely make Israelis confident that Sanders is on their side and wants them to live in peace and security – like “most international observers.”
Ironically, Sanders was criticized by left-wing Democrats for being too coy in his criticism of Israel during the Gaza war, and even in recent months. The anti-Israel left has argued in the past that it is time for the Democratic leadership to catch up with the trend of Democratic weariness of Israel. It is one notable issue – many activists have argued – on which the leaders are late to get the memo and respond to the sentiments of voters. Of course, an explanation is often attached to such complaints: it is the “lobby” that forces the leadership of the Democratic Party to ignore what Democratic voters want and believe. By defending Israel, they say, the leaders are doing the lobby’s bid, not the voters’.
So now they have a leader that expresses a sentiment more in line with their views. No, Sanders is, of course, no enemy of Israel. He is probably sincere when he says that Israel has a right to be secure as a Jewish State. And his criticism of Israel’s settlement policies is hardly exceptional or original. It is the ten thousand imaginary Gazans that make Sanders unique. It is his instinctive tendency to overstate Israel’s sins, to paint Israel as a country whose morality is questionable, that makes him troubling. Here is a serious candidate for the US presidency whose tone, for a brief moment, resembles that of a BDS activist.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.