Veteran American Senator Bernie Sanders has lashed out at Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the latter branded pro-Palestinian student protests across the United States as “anti-Semitic.”
“It is not anti-Semitic to hold you accountable for your actions,” Sanders said in a statement addressed to the Israeli premier on Thursday. “…please, do not insult the intelligence of the American people,” the American politician added.
A day earlier, Netanyahu had labelled the ongoing protests across dozens of American universities and colleges against the regime’s ongoing genocidal war on the Gaza Strip as “horrific.”
More than 34,300 Palestinians have been killed and over 77,200 others wounded in the war that the regime began on October 7, 2023 following a retaliatory operation by the Palestinian territory’s resistance movements.
Besides raging against the war, the American students are fuming over the US’s unstinting political, military, and intelligence support for the brutal military onslaught.
Netanyahu, however, went on to call the protesters “anti-Semitic mobs [who] have taken over leading universities.”
Sanders pulled no punches as he rebuked the Israeli official for, what he denounced as, his trying to deflect attention from his crimes.
“No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not anti-Semitic” to point out that, in a little over six months, the “extremist” Israeli regime had caused the huge Palestinian casualties, 70 percent of whom are women and children, he said.
It is “not anti-Semitic” to point out that Israeli bombing had completely destroyed more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza, displacing more than one million people, and that the Israeli regime had obliterated Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, said the former American presidential aspirant.
Sanders concluded his remarks by noting that Israeli savagery had annihilated Gaza’s healthcare system, and destroyed all of Gaza’s 12 universities and scores of the territory’s schools, leaving 625,000 students with no education.