An Old Interview with Bernie Sanders and His Opposition to Israel

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz republished an interview conducted with Bernie Sanders in 1990 on Sunday, February 6. This interview proves that the aging socialist has long sought justice and has persistently emphasized his views against capitalism and the state of America and the world. Senator Bernie Sanders is one of the two leading candidates of the Democratic Party for the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The interview that Haaretz has republished after 26 years took place when Bernie Sanders had just completed his eight-year tenure as mayor of Burlington in Vermont and was striving for a congressional seat. In this interview, Sanders, who is of Jewish descent but personally secular and strongly irreligious and opposed to Israeli policies, told Haaretz, "America must pressure Israel to respect the rights of Palestinians." At the time of that conversation, the "First Intifada" of the Palestinians, which began in 1987, was still ongoing against Israel and continued for three more years. Sanders stated in this campaign that being born to Jewish parents does not make him a supporter of Israel; "supporting justice and humanity" is his religion. In the 1990 interview, Bernie Sanders also expressed his shame over Israel's interventions in the Americas. Haaretz noted that Sanders was referring to Israel's massive arms sales to various countries in Central and Latin America. Referring to those military transactions, Sanders told Haaretz, "I do not understand why Israel should be America's mercenary." The 26-year-old interview, which Haaretz has now republished, has garnered significant attention in the U.S., with The Washington Post and The New York Times also mentioning it to help American voters better understand this socialist candidate. Haaretz wrote on Sunday, February 6, that Sanders' secularism has attracted millions of young Americans to him. One-third of Americans born after 1980 describe themselves as non-religious and secular, alien to religion and faith. Meanwhile, most Republican candidates hold extremely conservative religious views. Senator Ted Cruz, 45, born in Canada to a Cuban father and an Irish mother, represents the most fundamentalist views of conservative Christianity. Some of Cruz's views against abortion and same-sex marriage have drawn criticism from some of his party members, raising concerns among liberal donors to Cruz's campaign that if he becomes the final Republican nominee, he may not gain national support. Last summer, Senator Cruz stated, "Same-sex marriage is one of the greatest threats to our democracy in the modern era." Meanwhile, Senator Bernie Sanders is apparently poised to comfortably win the Democratic internal elections on Tuesday, February 9, in New Hampshire; in the Iowa caucus last Tuesday, he was trailing Clinton by about two-tenths of a percent. However, the latest polls indicate that a larger percentage of American voters do not consider Hillary Clinton a trustworthy figure; some polls have cited this negative trait in her as high as eighty percent. In the last debate, Mrs. Clinton acknowledged alongside her rival that many young people and women in America have been drawn to Senator Sanders. Eighty-four percent of Americans under 29 have joined Sanders' supporters, which has surprised other candidates significantly. The 74-year-old Senator Sanders, in this tough campaign, expresses only his views and, unlike other candidates, does not attack other rivals, which has embarrassed them. In this context, a clip that Bernie Sanders' supporters are currently sharing online shows a compilation of his speeches from 1980 to the present, tirelessly depicting the widespread poverty among some residents of America. This shows that Mr. Sanders has persistently condemned American capitalism over the years and has continuously proposed solutions to expand justice among all members of society. In these speeches, he has reiterated that many homeless people sleep on the streets; millions of children are deprived of sufficient food; education and healthcare are not available for everyone; many families are unemployed, leading to other problems, while American capitalists greedily seek to increase their millions and billions of dollars. Bernie Sanders emphasizes that nearly all presidential candidates in this and previous cycles have been defenders of capitalism and are indebted to this sick system because they receive millions of dollars from it for their campaigns. In the last debate, Mr. Sanders severely criticized the strong dependence of his party mate Hillary Clinton and all Republican candidates on capitalists, telling voters, "They do not care about you poor people or the middle class."