Dissent on Israel Not Permitted at Bernie Sanders Event
In 2004, while President George W. Bush was running for re-election, he developed a sinister reputation for aggressively banishing political dissent from his events. Bush “rewrote the playbook for organizing campaign rallies,” USA Today declared, ejecting from them people who scrawled anti-war messages on signs and shirts. The ACLU sued and successfully settled with the federal government over one couple’s thwarted attempts to wear anti-Bush t-shirts to a 2004 rally. One political science professor even compared Bush to Richard Nixon over the suppressive behavior at these events.
Fast forward to 2015, this past Saturday, when Bernie Sanders, an increasingly viable contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, held one of his biggest campaign rallies to date, drawing more than 20,000 people to an event at the Boston convention center. Among those visitors were a number of young activists from Boston Students for Justice in Palestine, who were curious about Sanders’ position on the occupied territories. They had a sign with them; in a playful nod to one of Sanders’ campaign slogans, it simply asked, “Will Ya Feel The Bern For Palestine?” The activists say they were well-received by other Sanders supporters in the crowd.
But staffers working for a candidate widely viewed as one of the most progressive members of the Senate were apparently not happy. Security was made aware of a threat: Some students who support Sanders were holding a sign with a question on it. A tactic right out of the Bush campaign “playbook” went into action.
“They told us to either put the sign away or leave,” said Sana Hashmani, one of the student activists. “We asked why, and they said that Bernie’s campaign staff had said the sign had to go.”
https://theintercept.com/2015/10/05/dissent-on-israel-not-permitted-at-bernie-sanders-event
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