I’ve lost all respect for Bernie Sanders.

I always knew he was a sheep dog who herded leftist stragglers back to corporate Democratic candidates. That was enough to lose my support as lesser evil voting is literally the greatest danger our society faces right now. It’s what set the pathway to Trump’s fascism, and it’s why we have no real opposition party, no strong defense of democracy.

That’s bad enough. But what I didn’t understand was that Sanders was herding voters back to genocidal Zionism. That is a step too far. I now actively and radically oppose him.

From now on, I’ll consider him to be part of the enemy camp. He has defended a Zionist Israel, refusing to acknowledge it is an apartheid state and so refusing economic sanctions. Yet he admitted South Africa had been an apartheid state that deserved economic sanctions as he supported in the past. The apartheid state is far worse in Israel than it ever was in South Africa. At least in South Africa, the government never did regular bombings of civilians.

He also has refused to identify the ongoing mass murder of Palestinians as genocide, instead falling back on quibbling. Nor does he support a one-state solution that would give equal rights to all. He wouldn’t even advocate a ceasefire unless Hamas released all hostages, while ignoring that Israel illegally holds thousands of Palestinian hostages in prisons with thousands more who were tried in Israeli military courts, basically kangaroo courts with over a 99% conviction rate.

Not to mention that Israel kills about a hundred Palestinians for every one Israeli who dies by Hamas, in spite of the Israeli population being twice as large. It’s genocide, not war.

When the one-state proposal was mentioned, Sanders argued that would be the end of Israel. Sure, it would be the end of apartheid. But why does he think that would be a bad thing? Could you imagine if all the hundreds of thousands of ethnicities worldwide each had their own separate authoritarian apartheid state. That is the complete opposite of the hope and values of liberal democracy.

This is where one is reminded that Zionism arose at the same time as fascism, indeed having been influenced by and gained support from Benito Mussolini’s Italy. Sanders’ ‘socialism’ is national socialism: socialism for me, authoritarianism for thee.

Zionism born out of fascism should end.

As one person put it, “If the entire land was 1 state, Israel, and all people were equal citizens, why would that mean the end of the state of Israel? That means the end of the state of Israel that’s only Jewish. There’s no way to have that without acts of ethnic cleansing. Why doesn’t he get that? You can have a multi ethnic, multi-religious state (like every other country on the damn planet) or you can have genocide and/or apartheid. BUT YOU CANT HAVE BOTH.”

That is to say Sanders is a fascist, if he prefers to be a friendly fascist, one who uses an optimistic mask to hide horrific oppression.

“Bernie is a liberal Zionist who believes in a peaceful humanitarian occupation,” explained someone else. “The problem is there is no such thing.” That is precisely what makes tools like him so dangerous. “Any whining about ‘muh Hamas’,” one commenter clarified, “is using resistance against genocide to justify the genocide itself; causality reversal.”

While serving the interests of authoritarianism, he softens it with a facade of nice-sounding rhetoric. He was always meant to be a distraction from any genuine alternative, as noted by yet another: “Bernie served his position perfectly. He’s a gatekeeper for any real action. An off-ramp for those upset with the status quo so that no real change occurs.”

Sanders isn’t only a sheep dog of the one-party state with two right wings but also controlled opposition of the evil empire. He is not really for peace, even as he pretends to be. He is just another complicit actor in the liberal class.

Like MAGA, he only wants a fair society for the right kinds of people. To his mind, the indigenous Palestinians don’t deserve equal rights under an egalitarian and liberal democracy (i.e., one state solution). They have no right to fight for their own survival; no right to defend themselves, their families, their communities, and their land against violent invaders, occupiers, and oppressors. Yet Hamas has only done what Jewish resistance fighters also did against Nazis in World War II.

That double standard is unacceptable. Genocide is wrong, no matter who does it. If Sanders believes it’s fine how Palestinians are treated, he should be forced to live the rest of his life in Gaza to fully experience what he supports.

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Note: This post is not an invitation to debate.

There is a bright line of morality. On one side is moral righteousness and on the other moral depravity. There will be no space allowed in this blog for voices defending settler colonialism, ethnonationalism, apartheid, concentration camps, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and various crimes against humanity.

Any such person will be blocked. It’s as wrong to have been done against the Jews as to be done by the Jews against others. Period.