Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein and Chairman Mark Levenson, Esq. released the following statement: 

ZOA is appalled and deeply pained that Senator Bernie Sanders recently hired yet another vicious, radical-Islamic Jew-hating, Israel-hating, promoter of anti-Semitic boycotts, Amer Zahr, as a Sanders’ campaign surrogate, and then accepted the endorsement of the anti-Semitic, Israel-hating, anti-Israel boycott-promoting “squad” of AOC, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. 

Apparently, Yom Kippur and Sanders’ recent heart surgery, which used Israeli-developed medical technology to save his life, did not soften Sanders’ heart towards the innocent, beleaguered Jewish and Israeli people.   

ZOA calls on all other Jewish leaders and organizations to join ZOA in demanding that Bernie Sanders fire his entourage of anti-Semitic surrogates and staffers, and disassociate himself from his hateful anti-Semitic endorsers.

New Bernie Sanders surrogate Amer Zahr repeatedly demonizes Israel with outrageous false accusations, such as comparing Israel to ISIS and Nazis. Zahr falsely claimed that Israel engaged in “Jewish jihad,” and that Israel has “policies of extrajudicial killing, house demolitions, massacres, land confiscations,” and that “essentially everything Israel has done since 1948, are recast [sic] as some sort of ‘revenge’ for the Holocaust.” Amer Zahr also falsely describes Jewish residents of the thousands-of-years-old Jewish homeland of Judea and Samaria as “illegal settlers (let’s call them ‘visitors’) [that] are fully armed, both with guns and the authority to assault Palestinians without accountability.” Amer also falsely and absurdly wrote: “There are a bunch of non-prisoners roaming throughout the [Palestinian] prison, living on the prison grounds, using a disproportionate amount of prison resources, and assaulting the prisoners with impunity. These people are called ‘settlers.’” And these comments are just tip the tip of the iceberg. For much more see “New Sanders Surrogate is a BDS Supporter Who Compared Israel to ISIS,” by Daniel Greenfield, FrontPage Mag., Oct. 10, 2019, and the Canary Mission’s collection of Amer Zahr’s hateful articles and statements.

The long, well-known hateful record of the squad members who just endorsed Sanders hardly needs repeating. For instance:

• Rashida Tlaib supports the destruction of Israel in favor of an Arab-dominated state – and blotted out Israel’s existence on her Congressional map; wrapped herself  in the Palestinian flag to celebrate her primary election victory: falsely calls Israel a “racist country” that discriminates against darker skinned people – an absurd statement that ignores Israel’s enormous racial diversity and Israel’s daring rescues of huge numbers of black Ethiopian Jews and other dark-skinned Jews to live in freedom in Israel; attacked CNN’s Jake Tapper for correctly stating that Palestinian leaders justify and promote violence against Israelis, and proudly associates with a long list of Hezbollah supporters, terrorists who murdered innocent Jewish students, etc. (See, e.g., “Rashida Tlaib’s Anti-Israel Record is Just the Tip of the Iceberg –– Her Closest Associates Include Terrorists, Anti-Semites & Conspiracy Theorists,” Apr. 24, 2019.)
• Ilhan Omar lied about her BDS views to get elected; is financially backed by the leaders of the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel BDS movement, Hamas supporters and other Israel-haters and America-haters; defamed Israel as guilty of “evil doings” after Hamas lobbed massive numbers of rockets into Israel; hurled anti-Semitic accusations that Israel “hypnotized” the world; falsely maligned the democratic State of Israel as an “apartheid Israeli regime”; made false anti-Semitic claims that Jewish money buys Congress; and demanded “compassion” and lighter sentences for convicted ISIS terrorists, and much more.
• Alexandria Ocacio-Cortez (AOC) advocated and justified Arab violence against Jews, saying in a July 2019 radio interview that Palestinian-Arabs have “no choice but to riot” against Jews; in the same interview spread the anti-Semitic, outrageous “Jews poison the water” medieval-style blood libel, by falsely claiming that Israel denies Palestinians access to clean water; falsely and maliciously accused Israel of committing a “massacre” against Gaza “protesters” when in fact the Palestinian-Arabs concerned were murderous rioters attempting to enter Israel to murder Jews, and when even Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad admitted that most of the rioters were these terror groups’ members; among other things.
• And all three of these congresspersons are also co-sponsoring a Congressional resolution to aid and abet anti-Israel and anti-Semitic boycotts, divestment and sanctions.  (See “ZOA Denounces Reps. Omar & Tlaib’s Anti-Semitic, Israelophobic Resolution to Protect BDS,” July 19, 2019.)  

Sadly, Bernie Sanders has a longstanding pattern of hiring anti-Semitic Israel-haters. In addition to the most recent group:

• Sanders hired Jew-hating Israel-basher, Jew-hater, and woman-basher Linda Sarsour as a surrogate last month (and in 2016) (See “ZOA Urges Jewish and Other Groups to Call for Sarsour/Berger Dismissal From Sanders & Warren Campaigns,” Sept. 12, 2019); 
• Sanders hired profanity-spouting Israel-basher and anti-Israel BDS promoter Simone Zimmerman in 2016 (See “ZOA’s Klein and Foxman Opposed Sanders’ Choice for Jewish Liaison,” Apr. 10, 2016); and
• Sanders hired a trio of Israel-bashing haters as his top staffers, including Sanders’ campaign manager, press secretary and senior foreign policy adviser, in March of this year. Among other things, Sanders’ campaign manager Faiz Shakir spearheaded the ACLU’s wrongful campaign to enable anti-Israel boycotts, divestment and sanctions, including by bringing court cases against state anti-BDS laws. (See“ZOA Condemns Bernie Sanders for Employing Three Hostile-To-Jews/Israel Staffers; Fire Them!,” Mar. 13, 2019.)

ZOA is frequently asked, especially by our non-Jewish friends: How can someone, such as Bernie Sanders, turn so horribly against his own people? Harvard psychiatrist Kenneth Levin offered this general explanation of this phenomenon in Dr. Levin’s brilliant book, “The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege,”: “Significant numbers of Jews have repeatedly responded to the noxious fumes of chronic assault in the Diaspora and in Israel by deluding themselves into believing they could win peace through embracing the indictments of their enemies and seeking to appease them.”  

Psychiatric explanations aside, there is no legitimate excuse for Bernie Sanders to repeatedly embrace leading enemies of Israel and the Jewish people. 

ZOA accordingly calls on all Jewish leaders to join ZOA in demanding that Bernie Sanders fire and disassociate himself from his anti-Semitic public endorsers, surrogates and staffers.