The candidacy of Bernie Sanders for the Democrat nomination for president of the United States has excited many pro-Palestinian activists. Even academic Amin Saikal has jumped on the bandwagon.
This Sanders euphoria is based on few facts and much posturing, vitriol and emotion. For instance, Sanders told the New York Post that he thought more than 10,000 “innocent civilians” had been killed in the 2014 Gaza war. Even Hamas and the United Nations put the number at more like 1500, and Israel says it was about 1000. Similarly, his claims about “disproportionality” reflect a basic ignorance of what the term “proportionality” means in international law.
Though it is of course true that residents of Gaza have been and continue to be the innocent victims of the conflict, and it is a tragedy that there is still not peace between Israelis and Palestinians, any fair analysis of the situation demonstrates that to hold Israel solely responsible, as Saikal does and implies Sanders also does (though this is far from clear), is untenable.
Full report by Dr Colin Rubinstein in the Sydney Morning Herald