Although Bernie Sanders is unlikely to win the Democratic nomination, the relative success of his candidacy, argues Ron Radosh, will nonetheless have the effect of moving his party leftward—with results that bode ill for U.S.-Israel relations. The evidence can be seen in Sanders’s appointments to the fifteen-member committee responsible for writing the party’s platform:
Worried about keeping the support of Bernie’s people after her nomination is wrapped up, [Hillary] Clinton is being forced to tilt further to the left than she would like, making it much harder for her to shift back to the center in the general election campaign. . . .
[Furthermore], let us look at the five members [of the platform committee] that Bernie Sanders has appointed. What stands out is their well-known animosity to Israel, and support of not only the Palestinians but of Hamas. The most prominent name is that of the African-American professor, philosopher, and radical Cornel West. West has toured with Sanders and opened up rallies for him. West, moreover, is a leading BDS activist, who has said that the Gaza Strip is “the ’hood on steroids,’” and in 2014 wrote that the crimes of Hamas “pale in the face of the U.S.-supported Israeli slaughters of innocent civilians.” . . .
The second person appointed by Sanders is the American pro-Palestinian activist James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. . . . In 1996, . . . his group sponsored a rally at which protestors held signs saying “Peres and Hitler are the same—the only difference is the name.” . . . Sanders also put on the platform committee Representative Keith Ellison, who is also . . . a major critic of Israel, and will undoubtedly stand with Zogby and West. All three will work, probably successfully, to create a strong anti-Israel stance as the official platform to be implemented should a Democratic nominee become president. . . . Clinton’s choices for the platform committee likewise reflect her leftward tilt.
Read more on PJ Media: https://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2016/05/24/anti-israel-socialists-write-democrat-party-platform/?singlepage=true