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Bernie Sanders stated clearly, with no apologies and with no excuses that Israel was wrong in its reckless attack on Gaza, and then went on and called out Hillary Clinton for speaking at the AIPAC convention and barely mentioning the Palestinians. For the first time since anyone can remember, a major presidential candidate in the US criticizes Israel in public. Sanders also confirmed, to the millions of Americans who were watching the debate, that there is a humanitarian disaster in Gaza. When Barak Obama was sworn in in January 2008, Israel had just completed a large scale attack on Gaza, killing and injuring many thousands of Palestinian civilians. Obama, who at that point had enough political capital where he could have said or done anything, said nothing and did nothing. Even President Lyndon Johnson did not dare criticize Israel after Israeli war planes attacked and sank the USS Liberty in 1967, killing thirty-four and wounding one hundred seventy-one American servicemen. But Bernie Sanders puts everything on the line. So now we have to ask, what happens next?

Bernie Sanders demonstrated that you can criticize Israel, and they sky won’t fall. He also showed Hillary Clinton to be a coward, a hypocrite and beholden to AIPAC. This is AIPAC’s worst nightmare – that a major politician will be unafraid to tell the truth and break the chokehold that the Israeli lobby has had on American politicians for decades. This will legitimize criticism of Israel in the political realm once and for all. Now there are two possibilities: either a snowball effect, where others will join Sanders and start condemning Israel, or Sanders will disappear into thin air. I would venture to say that the latter, while preferred by the Israeli lobby is unlikely.

Sanders mentioned his time in Israel as a “kid,” which was spent on a kibbutz. Had he mentioned that the land upon which the kibbutz stood was, like most farms in Israel, stolen from Palestinians who forced off their land and are now refugees, that the water used by the kibbutz was stolen from Palestinians, and that more than likely some of the Palestinians to whom the land still rightfully belongs work as day laborers on the kibbutz for pittance - why that would have made his statement bolder and more honest. Furthermore, had he left out his love and support for Israel all together the whole thing would have been more appropriate. But over the years we have become accustomed to accept so little on the issue of Palestine, that what he did say is considered radical. And indeed, by American standards, even the smallest recognition of an injustice to Palestinians is radical.

Lately “The BDS” as Israel calls all Palestine solidarity activity, is getting a lot of attention in Israel. StandWithUs and Yediot Aharonot sponsored a conference in Jerusalem on how to combat BDS, and Israeli television channel 10 came to the US and produced a five-chapter series on the phenomenon of “The BDS” in the US. They were shocked to learn just how prevalent Palestinian solidarity movement is on campuses, churches and among young American Jews. Both the conference, which I attended, and the channel 10 series in which I, Noam Chomsky, Hatem Bazian, Alice Rothschild, student activists on campuses and others were interviewed – created an hysterical image of a great and terrible enemy coming to devour the Jews. Both the conference and the channel 10 series also showed expressions of frustration with the Israeli government for not doing enough to stop “The BDS.” Chomsky and several others who declared themselves Zionists expressed a view similar to Sanders, namely that the problem is the “occupation” and that this is a case of “Israel gone wrong.” Chomsky added that the BDS movement is wrong in demanding the return of Palestinian refugees as a condition because “this will never happen.” So much for vision.

The Israeli establishment and the constituents that it faithfully represents looks down at Jews like Chomsky and Sanders and they resent any mention of ending the occupation, injustice or peace talks. All of which points to the following: the issue is not Israel gone wrong, it is not the “occupation” or even Netanyahu. The problem is and has been from the beginning the settler colonialist project in Palestine, or in other words, the state of Israel.

Coming on the heels of Senator Patrick Leahy’s letter to secretary of state John Kerry regarding gross violations of human rights by Israel, Sanders’ remarks during the debate are the nightmare that everyone on the Zionist side feared: major American politicians criticizing Israel publically. Neither AIPAC, StandWithUs or any of the other pro-Israeli groups heard, nor do they care about Sanders’ time in Israel or his claim of being “100% pro-Israel.” It’s a zero sum game for them, you are either with Israel and support its war crimes and racist ideology 100% or you are a traitor, self-hater, mislead, etc., etc.

Journalist Dan Cohen recently did random interviews with Jews walking down the streets of Jerusalem. He asked them about their views on Bernie Sanders and his video report was published on Mondoweiss, The responses he got were that Sanders is: “Enemy of the Jews,” “self-destructive,” “a non-Jewish Jew,” “extreme left and not pro-Israeli,” “doesn’t care about the Jewish people,” “an ugly man,” “irrational,” and “if he only had the right data he would speak differently.” In other words, everyone is wrong about the issue but Israelis. I remember that once when I was in high school the parents of a friend visited relatives in South Africa. The apartheid regime was in full swing and when they returned I asked them about apartheid. “It’s nonsense,” they said, because according to their relatives “black people are perfectly happy in South Africa.” One of the people Dan Cohen interviewed was a young man who said he had participated in the 2014 Israeli invasion of Gaza, and in his words “it was very gentle.” Israel and the former apartheid regime in South Africa have more in common than just racist laws, they also share another trait: denial. Still, Bernie Sanders’ statement is a tectonic shift and it is likely that an earthquake will follow.