Bernie is not anti-Zionist. He’s repeatedly emphasized Israel has a right to defend it’s settler colonial apartheid self. He’s a Zionist.
During a presidential debate in the same year in Atlanta, Sanders embarked on another contradiction: “It is no longer good enough for us to be pro-Israel, I am pro-Israel, but we must treat the Palestinians with the dignity they deserve.” Being pro-Israel is being pro-colonialism, for the simple reason that Israel is a colonial enterprise that thrives upon the dispossession of the Palestinian people.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231107-bernie-sanders-and-the-zionist-narrative/
Is it possible for someone to not be actively anti-something, or the lack if being so will qualify them as pro-something?
I mean OP called Sanders anti-Zionist. He’s certainly not that. Bernie has also outright stated that he supports Israel. I will admit that I may be slightly overstating the case to say that he’s incontrovertibly a Zionist, but he at least may be from his public statements.
Israel is a lot like the Nazis. If you are not against the Nazis you are in favor of the Nazis. Bernie defending israel at the start of their Genocide for multiple months is surely not a great look. Even now Bernie has not called it a Genocide.
While Mr. Sanders was one of the first members of Congress to call for a humanitarian pause in the war amid a catastrophic civilian death toll in Gaza caused by Israel’s military offensive, he has rejected calls for a permanent cease-fire. Mr. Sanders, an independent, caucuses with Democrats.
He also reiterated his call for conditions on military aid to Israel and emphasized that Hamas was not a trustworthy negotiating partner in considering a permanent cease-fire.
“Biggest political disappointment of our generation,” Briahna Joy Gray, the national press secretary for Mr. Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign, wrote about him on X.
Bernie is certainly not a prime target for someone that opposes israel but he is a Zionist.
So being a Zionist is just supporting Israel’s existence now? That’s a really really low bar, and what is your solution to these “Zionists”, the destruction of Israel?
I mean OP called Sanders anti-Zionist. He’s certainly not that. Bernie has also outright stated that he supports Israel. I will admit that I may be slightly overstating the case to say that he’s incontrovertibly a Zionist, but he at least may be from his public statements.