Jewish U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a scathing assertion Thursday pushing again in opposition to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s characterization of burgeoning protests on American college campuses as “antisemitic,” declaring, “It’s not antisemitic to carry you accountable to your actions.”
“No, Mr. Netanyahu. It’s not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to level out that in a bit over six months, your extremist authorities has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded greater than 77,000 — 70% of whom are ladies and kids,” mentioned Sanders (I-Vt.). “It’s not antisemitic to level out that your bombing has fully destroyed greater than 221,000 housing models in Gaza, leaving a couple of million folks homeless — nearly half the inhabitants.”
“Antisemitism is a vile and disgusting type of bigotry that has finished unspeakable hurt to many tens of millions of individuals,” continued Sanders, who misplaced members of the family to the Nazi Holocaust. “However, please, don’t insult the intelligence of the American folks by making an attempt to distract us from the immoral and unlawful warfare insurance policies of your extremist and racist authorities. Don’t use antisemitism to deflect consideration from the felony indictment you might be going through within the Israeli courts.”
No, Mr. Netanyahu. It’s not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to level out that in a bit over six months your extremist authorities has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded greater than 77,000 – 70% of whom are ladies and kids.
You’ll not distract us from this immoral warfare. pic.twitter.com/oDaiyU4ipD
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 25, 2024
Sanders’ assertion got here a day after Netanyahu falsely described pupil protesters talking out in opposition to Israel’s catastrophic warfare on Gaza as “antisemitic mobs” and likened the demonstrations to “what occurred in German universities within the Thirties.”
“It must be stopped,” Netanyahu mentioned of the campus protests, which have confronted violent police crackdowns.
College students at Columbia, Princeton, the Metropolis School of New York, the College of Texas at Austin, Northwestern, and different colleges nationwide are demanding that the establishments divest from any firms which can be taking part in or benefiting from Israel’s warfare on Gaza and publicly assist a direct cease-fire.
On Wednesday, a whole lot of UT Austin college students walked out of their school rooms and marched to the principle garden of the campus earlier than cops with horses and riot gear arrived on the scene, arrested dozens, and assaulted some protesters.
“One lady mentioned she noticed a big police officer place his whole physique weight to detain a younger lady protesting,” The Texas Tribune reported. “Legislation enforcement was additionally seen kneeling on people’ backs and necks, pulling their hair, and in a single case punching a protester within the nostril.”
Jeremi Suri, a professor of historical past at UT Austin, advised Al Jazeera that opposite to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s declare, there was “nothing antisemitic” about Wednesday’s protests.
“These college students have been shouting ‘free Palestine,’ that’s all,” mentioned Suri. “They have been saying nothing that was threatening. And as they have been standing and shouting, I witnessed the police — the state police, the campus police, town police — a military of police nearly the scale [of] the coed group… many have been carrying weapons, many have been carrying rifles, after which, inside a couple of minutes, this group of police stormed into the coed crowd and began arresting college students.”
In his assertion Thursday, Sanders emphasised that criticism of Israel’s massively damaging assault on Gaza can’t be conflated with antisemitism.
“It’s not antisemitic to notice that your authorities has obliterated Gaza’s civilian infrastructure — electrical energy, water, and sewage,” mentioned Sanders, who earlier this week voted in opposition to a international support package deal that included $17 billion in further U.S. army help for Israel.
“It’s not antisemitic to appreciate that your authorities has annihilated Gaza’s healthcare system, knocking 26 hospitals out of service and killing greater than 400 healthcare staff,” he continued. “It’s not antisemitic to sentence your authorities’s destruction of all of Gaza’s 12 universities and 56 of its colleges, with a whole lot extra broken, leaving 625,000 college students with no schooling.”
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