Jandos Rothstein
In 2016, after just five days on the job, Bernie Sanders’s Jewish outreach director was fired for an old Facebook post in which she cursed at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. At the time, Simone Zimmerman, co-founder of the anti-occupation group IfNotNow, had provoked the ire of the American Jewish establishment, which pressured Sanders to fire her. With the current Trump-Netanyahu alliance advancing Israeli annexation of occupied Palestinian territories and the fact that Sanders himself recently called Netanyahu a “racist,” such a scenario seems unthinkable today. Sanders, who, at the Democratic debate in December, said “It is no longer good enough for us simply to be pro-Israel,” has been changing the conversation on Israel in Washington.
Sanders’s condemnation of Israeli policies has developed since 2016 into a willingness to condition U.S. aid to Israel over its human rights violations. He is the only Democratic presidential candidate who brings up Palestinian human rights, unprompted, and calls for an end to Israel’s occupation, a term that has been expunged from all official Israeli and American government language. While Sanders does not support boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, he continues to stand by the two first members of Congress who do; both Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who have endorsed him, and he has stood by them in the face of Trump’s xenophobic attacks against the freshman legislators. Sanders also named Palestinian American organizer Linda Sarsour a surrogate, despite her being a lightning rod for persistent condemnation by the so-called pro-Israel community, which essentially portrays all three of these high-profile Muslim women as anti-Semites.
Sanders hired Washington insider Joel Rubin to be his Jewish outreach director last month, perhaps to placate the American Jewish community. A former deputy assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs in the Obama administration and a co-founder of the liberal pro-Israel lobby J Street, Rubin represents a clear choice by Sanders to allay the concerns of the Democratic establishment. His job is to ensure Sanders has the Jewish community’s vote, says Rubin, and he appears to have his work cut out for him. While American Jews vote predominantly Democratic, a January Pew Research poll among Democratic candidates show Sanders has only 11 percent support, coming in well behind Biden, Warren, and Buttigieg. Sanders is just ahead of Michael Bloomberg, the other prominent Jewish candidate.
While Jewish Americans constitute only 2 percent of the country’s electorate, Jewish voter turnout averages over 85 percent, and significant Jewish population centers in states like Florida, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have the ability to swing the primary. The fact that the first Jewish politician to come this close to the presidency does not appear to have the support of the majority of the Jewish community is certainly a liability the Sanders’s campaign seeks to ameliorate.
Rubin insists that Sanders represents the interests of the majority of American Jews, not just on Israel but on a wide variety of issues. “American Jews support civil liberties at home, oppose gun violence, support women’s equality, oppose putting kids in cages, and are actively leading efforts to combat climate change and income equality,” he says. Indeed, a 2019 poll shows that healthcare and gun violence are top issues for Jewish voters, while Israel comes in at the bottom. But when it comes to Israel, Sanders, like most American Jews, supports a negotiated two-state solution. “Poll after poll shows that American Jews want the U.S. to be engaged in making peace abroad and pursuing social justice at home - positions aggressively embraced by Bernie Sanders,” Rubin says.
That has not stopped AIPAC or the Democratic Majority for Israel—a year-old Super PAC with ties to AIPAC—from going after Sanders, And as his chances of becoming the nominee appear to be rapidly increasing, so too are the attacks. DMFI, whose mission is to apparently keep the Democratic Party hawkish on Israel, spent $800,000 in attack ads in Iowa questioning Sanders’s electability, all without mentioning Israel once. They are already running ads in Nevada, which is significant because it presents one of the only times that a Democratic Super-PAC is throwing its weight against a Democratic candidate. It is also noteworthy considering that Sanders remains a firm supporter of a negotiated two-state solution, which is no different than the policies DMFI and other American Jewish organizations claim to support. The only difference is Sanders’s willingness to actually force Israel to get there.
DMFI has issued several statements in recent months rebuking Sanders for “surrounding himself with a number of surrogates and endorsers who hate Israel, support BDS and have repeatedly made anti-Semitic statements,” indirectly referring to Sarsour and Representatives Tlaib and Omar. (DMFI declined to speak with me.)
Prominent American Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee have similarly railed against Omar and Tlaib; the American Jewish Congress called on Sanders to fire Linda Sarsour. Meanwhile, Jewish media outlets have published columns expressing dread and fear of a Sanders nomination, including the claim he is only embracing his Jewish identity to deflect against charges of anti-Semitism.
“We are dealing with cynical political operators employing racist and Islamophobic tactics to undermine the first Jewish front runner for president in American history. We are not going to play that game,” Rubin says. “The fact that Bernie is ensuring that both the Jewish community and many other communities under duress know that they have they have a candidate who will fight for them is why he has the broadest, most diverse coalition of support right now. His message of inclusion is resonating with the body politic of the Democratic party,” Rubin says.
Meanwhile AIPAC, which prides itself on being bipartisan, has taken a more explicit approach by purchasing Facebook ads accusing “radicals in the Democratic Party [of] pushing their anti-Semitic and anti-Israel policies down the throats of the American people." One such ad included an image of Representatives Tlaib and Omar, as well as Betty McCollum of Minnesota, the lead sponsor of a bill to make sure U.S. aid to Israel is not used to detain Palestinian children. However, in a rare move, the lobby organization apologized (conveniently over the weekend) and removed some of these ads. But for Congresswoman McCollum, it wasn’t enough. She issued a statement Wednesday calling the ad “incitement” and condemned AIPAC as a “hate group.”
“These pro-Israel establishment organizations appear more interested in protecting their own political power and unquestioning support for Israel, even if it means strengthening Trump,” says Zimmerman, the activist who now works at the watchdog group B’tselem USA. She says that the attacks on Sanders already appear to be “much nastier” than they were in 2016, but that they lack substance. “Bernie is an anti-Semite because Palestinians support him? It’s so desperate, and racist,” she says.
Linda Sarsour, who has been campaigning for Sanders among Muslim voters, says that hiring Joel Rubin for Jewish outreach “proves there’s room for all of us. There is no one voice in the campaign.” Sarsour points out that Palestinian American voters, similar to Jews, are not one-issue voters.
“There is an assumption the Palestinian American community only supports Bernie because he’s the most progressive on Palestine,” she said. “But we also support him for many other issues, including Medicare for All, immigration, his staunch opposition to the Muslim Ban, and his solidarity with Ilhan and Rashida.”
With Sanders emerging as the Democratic frontrunner going into Nevada, it will be interesting to see how pro-Israel groups and conservative Jewish media organizations navigate the political landscape. The Sanders campaign says it raised $1.3 million off the negative ads in Iowa. Sanders has also been openly embracing his Jewish identity, something that American Jewish columnists and tweeters complained he did not do in 2016. “There’s a false narrative out there about Bernie, about how he feels about being Jewish and how his views impacting the Jewish community are being handled,” Rubin said. On Sunday, in a clear signal that Sanders is running on his Jewish identity, the campaign released a video positioning Sanders as the response to the Trump Administration's emboldening of anti-Semitism.
Sanders asserted at a CNN townhall in New Hampshire last week that being Jewish is imprinted in his humanistic approach. Some of that relates to understanding the horrors of the Holocaust at a young age and how that has shaped his worldview. “We are one people,” he said, “and I don’t care if you’re black, you’re white, you’re Latino, Native American, Asian American, you’re gay, you’re straight—that’s not what it’s about. What it’s about is that we are human beings and we share common dreams and aspirations.”
It remains to be seen how that message will affect Jewish voters at the ballot box, but it certainly seems to be resonating with other minorities. As Representative Omar told me, “Bernie understands, as I do, that all our struggles are connected. It warms my heart to see so many in the Muslim community endorsing, organizing and being part of a movement to elect the first Jewish President in U.S. history. This kind of solidarity between our communities is the bright spot of this election cycle.”
