In America, Politicians Pay for Bucking Netanyahu

TRUTH DIG – As he campaigns in New York, Bernie Sanders is learning what many Jews know—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes it tough for a Jew to be a Zionist.

A friend gave me that line about the prime minister making it difficult for a Jew to be a Zionist. Maybe the Vermont senator knew it already. But Sanders, as a Jew, is being forcibly reminded in his battle against Hillary Clinton in the New York presidential primary, where every word is magnified and every nuance scorned.

Jews compose almost 20 percent of the New York City electorate. And because they relish the act of voting, they are a force in politics beyond their number. Ostensibly, they should be Sanders’ people. He lived in Brooklyn for the first 18 years of his life. He spent a year in Israel. He had family members in Europe who were destroyed in the Holocaust.

But Sanders is a secular Jew, not an observant one, and he does not immerse himself in the Jewish community. He’s Jewish, but, some say, maybe not Jewish enough.

The New York polls reflect that feeling, showing him behind Clinton, the former secretary of state who represented New York in the Senate and won two statewide elections in the process. ASienna Institute Research poll shows her leading Sanders 52 percent to 42 percent, and 60 percent to 38 percent among Jews.

Sanders is up against a powerful voice. Netanyahu has become a force in trying to get American Jews to support his policy of expanding settlements in Israel and taking an increasingly harsh line against Palestinians. He is a great ally of Republicans and a dedicated foe of any American president supporting an acceptable Israel agreement with the Palestinians, going back to the first President Bush and most especially singling out President Barack Obama.

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