Bernie Sanders’ Candor on Israel Shows American Voters Are Changing Their Tune [View all]
Source: Haaretz
Gaffes aside, Sanders’ embarrassing New York Daily News interview actually illuminates one of the underrated strengths of his campaign.
Bernie Sanders has been getting a lot of flack for his excruciating interview with the New York Daily News, in which, among other things, he made the mistake of claiming that Israel killed over 10,000 Palestinian civilians during the 2014 Gaza war, when in fact that number is closer to 1,500.
Presumably, Sanders mixed up the number of fatalities (a horrific number in itself) with the number of people who were injured — which, according to the UN, is over 11,000. Regardless, it is an embarrassing error.
But while Sanders has been slammed for his apparent lack of knowledge on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and while he’s been accused of being a foreign policy lightweight more generally, the thrust of what he had to say to the Daily News about Israel was actually pretty sensible.
During the interview, Sanders spoke about the need for Israel to withdraw from some West Bank settlements, stating, "I think withdrawal from those territories is appropriate”. He also criticized Israel for its disproportionate response to terrorist rocket attacks: “I don't think I'm alone in believing that Israel's force was more indiscriminate than it should have been.”
Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/u-s-election-2016/.premium-1.713505
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