Bernie Sanders enables anti-Semitism at Democratic debate

During last night’s Democratic presidential debate in South Carolina, Bernie Sanders launched an unprecedented broadside against AIPAC and the prime minister of Israel, accusing both of racism.  He stated he will be boycotting the organization, and that others should as well. At the same time, Sanders has lately emphasized his pride in his Jewish roots and that he harbors a sense of belonging to the Jewish community.

Perhaps Sanders is returning to his identity, and perhaps he is beginning to appreciate the vast accrued insights of over 4,000 years of Jewish history. Or perhaps the cynics are right: he has a Jewish donor problem which will haunt him as a democratic candidate. One thing, however, is clear: he is an ally, enabler, perhaps even a dabbler, of anti-Semites, Jew hatred and a purveyor of the obsessive, unique and counterfactual-based criticism of the Jewish nation.

While the theoretical underpinnings of socialism are not inherently anti-Jewish – other than believing Judaism to be slated for extinction as no more than a relic of a transcended religious past in a post-religious age – the practice of socialism and its transformation into populism treads dangerously close in anti-Semitic imagery and closely follows several traditional anti-Semitic tropes.

When Rep. Ilhan Omar blurts out that one needs “to follow the Benjamins (hundred dollar bills),” and the Occupy Wall Street movement talks about the bankers controlling the world – namely saying there is a tiny, secretive, scheming and greedy parasitic group plundering the wealth from the  vast majority and leaving them poor – then anyone with any sense of history is immediately familiar and alarmed by the sentiments it evokes.

Indeed, the correlation between the rise to power of socialism and tolerance of increasing anti-Jewish sentiments and imagery is well established in the historical record.  When democratic socialism has come to power in European countries, the government has veered into a hard anti-Israeli position, applying an impossible and unique double-standard to the Jewish nation.

Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Tamika Mallory have accused pro-Israel American Jews of not being loyal not to the US – a strange accusation coming from the community of populist leftist politicians that wrapped themselves in the Palestinian flag during their inaugurations – and that AIPAC is an agent of the Israeli government under Netanyahu.

Larry Wilkerson, Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy adviser, displayed overt anti-Semitism in his wandering and angry 2018 New York Times op-ed, which accused Israel and the Jews of a whole range of evils.

Taken together, the message and the entourage surrounding Sanders is clear: The true loyalty of Jews is toward a conspiratorial, money-driven agenda, leeching and advancing at the expense of the morally correct, and serving the interests of some hidden elders of that conspiracy, often being substituted by the idea of “Israel.” Taken in this context, Sanders’ convoluting the interests of Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and American Jews as synonymous – which the boycott of AIPAC due to Netanyahu’s “racism” implies – is consistent.

The politicians on the left are very quick to tar the President by arguing that the mere support of a clearly anti-Semitic movement or leader indicts him. Trump’s condemnations of those anti-Semites are dismissed as perfunctory and counteracted by the “dog-whistle” communication that secretly mobilizes them on his behalf.  And yet, one can only ask of Bernie Sanders: Has he condemned the Million-Man March for barring Jewish LGBT members from participating? Has he condemned and distanced himself from his own followers for engaging in openly anti-Semitic rhetoric? Has he ever said a word in condemnation of the virulently anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying leadership of the Palestinians, Iran or Turkey? Did he fire Larry Wilkerson for his overt anti-Semitism?

In short, has Bernie Sanders ever met an anti-Semitic government attacking America with whom he did not side against the United States?  Or did he even bother to note and condemn their anti-Semitism?

Again, perhaps Bernie Sanders is genuine in his return to his Jewish roots.  But there is a good measure to see if that is the case.  Any community, the Jews being no exception, first and foremost feel, understand and react to an existential threat. The rising tide of anti-Semitism represents such a threat.

Of course, it will be easy for Sanders to condemn anti-Semitism among the growing community of ethnic nationalism – it is in his self-interest. Those anti-Semites will not vote for him, and his condemning of them establishes his credential in confronting anti-Semitism.  But the true test will be only if he condemns and leads the charge in purging the left of the ideas and personages animating and leading this rising tide of dangerous and increasingly normalized anti-Semitism. Namely, will he condemn overt anti-Semitism and anti-Semites when it does not advance his political agenda?

So far, the answer is not only a resounding “no,” but he appears to descend ever deeper into their clutches and moves ever further in validating and normalizing their bile.

Dr. David Wurmser is Director of the Center for Security Policy’s Project on Global Anti-Semitism and the US-Israel Relationship.  He is a former U.S. Navy Reserve intelligence officer with extensive national security experience working for the State Department, the Pentagon, Vice President Dick Cheney and the National Security Council.