At a public event on Monday, the Vermont senator and presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, while insisting that he is “not anti-Israel,” declared that the Jewish state “is now run by a right-wing—dare I say—racist government.” Ariel Bolstein comments:

Sanders didn’t explain his use of one of the worst insults that exist in American and Western discourse. Average onlookers . . . were expected simply to believe him. The problem is that there are millions who will. And worse—even those who don’t believe him will be influenced [by his remarks]. . . .

An analysis of Sanders’ previous comments about Israel demonstrates that insulting the Jewish state is not a one-time slip-up by a demagogue senator who is trying to gather votes from the fringes of the Democratic party. In Sanders’ case, this is his approach: in everything having to do with Israel, he isn’t deterred by half-truths or even outright lies that reference the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes. There are plenty of examples.

When Sanders wanted to win the Democratic nomination in 2016, he claimed that Israel had killed over 10,000 innocent Palestinians, launched indiscriminate attacks in the Gaza Strip, and shelled hospitals in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. The senator not only inflated the numbers by several orders of magnitude, he even outdid the Hamas spokespersons in creating a false narrative that the IDF was intentionally attacking the civilian population.

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.