Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

Bernie Sanders has been repeatedly uttering the phrase “Israel has a right to defend itself” on his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, which in the year 2025 can only be interpreted as blatant genocide apologia.

Israel does not have “a right to defend itself” against an occupied population in a giant concentration camp. Under international law it has a right to end the occupation, and that’s it. “Israel has a right to defend itself” is just a slogan people say when they want to justify supplying an ongoing genocide.

Sanders has been mixing his support for Israel in with periodic criticisms of Netanyahu and the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza, always taking care to make his criticisms about the behavior of Israel’s current leadership and not the nature of the racist apartheid state itself.

Sanders is doing this for two reasons. Firstly, he is working to galvanize a big tent inclusive coalition of Democrats in opposition to Trump, and he wants that big tent to include people who think genocide is bad and people who think genocide is fine. He doesn’t want to offend the pro-genocide liberals.

Secondly, Sanders is doing this because he himself is a Zionist. Like other liberal Zionists, Bernie Sanders upholds a vision of an Israel that has never, ever existed: one which remains an ethnostate dominated by Jews, but which conducts itself in a kind and just manner, without constantly murdering and abusing Palestinians.

This iteration of the state of Israel is a fiction. An imaginary fantasyland, like Narnia. Everything about Israel is stacked against the possibility of such a status quo ever emerging, and Israel has always done everything it can to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. By pretending it is possible to have the Zionist entity and also have peace and justice, liberal Zionists help manufacture public consent for continuing to feed weapons to the genocidal apartheid state of Israel.

    • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
      61·
      3 days ago

      You think we’ve not had these discussions before?

      Let me ask you this, do you believe all Jews in Israel are zionists? Or do you believe that it is the government in power?

      Much the same as the USA, not where I am from, do you believe everybody supports Trump?

      • IndustryStandard@lemmy.worldOP
        29·
        3 days ago

        Your question should be

        Much the same as the USA, not where I am from, do you believe everybody supports Trump the existence of the USA?

        And the answer to that is going to be a more than 99% yes.

        Similarly more than 99% of the Jews in Israel are Zionists.

        There are Liberal Zionists like Bernie Sanders or right wingers like Marco Rubio (which Bernie Sanders voted to confirm) in Israel as well. But they all believe in an ethnostate based on Jewish supremacy.

          • IndustryStandard@lemmy.worldOP
            27·
            3 days ago

            95% of them support the genocide what the hell are you on about

            More than 60% straight up admit they want to kill every last Palestinian

            Polling data from the Agam Institute suggests that some 60% of Israeli Jews oppose allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza. That is, 60% of Jewish Israelis believe all 2.2 million people in Gaza should die of dehydration and starvation.

            It is telling that you believe Israelis are not literal Nazis. They are literal Nazis. Get it through your head already. They live in Israel of course they are Zionists. There are extremely few dissidents such as Gideon Levy actively opposing Israel. Gideon has made that very clear in his videos.

            • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
              32·
              3 days ago

              I think you’re over simplifying the issue a little here.

              On first glance it seems the first one, 95%, figure was taken in January 2024, not long after October 7th and understandably tensions were high, and propaganda is high coming from the Israeli government and it’s supporters.

              The over simplification comes from your 60% figure. You’re conflating that these people think they have a God given right to that land with genocide.

              I don’t have the answer but labelling all Israeli Jews as Nazis is a little much imo. I do believe a genocide is happening and I believe Israel and the west are in the wrong, and i wholeheartedly support Palestinians and can empathise with Hamas being somewhat necessary as a means of fighting back, but I really don’t like the idea of labelling all of any demographic with the same label.