Now that Bernie Sanders has won the New Hampshire primary, and came in second, by a hairsbreadth, in the Iowa caucuses, the possibility seems greater that the aging Jewish radical could become the Democratic nominee for the presidency. Citing the troubling parallels to the takeover of Britain’s Labor party by Jeremy Corbyn and his fellow hard-left anti-Semites, Yossi Klein Halevi believes such an outcome would be nothing short of disastrous for American Jews: :

Bernie Sanders . . . has repeatedly affirmed his support for Israel’s right to exist, though he is far more equivocal about its right to defend that right. We all know about his time on a kibbutz. . . . But more than any other leading politician, Sanders is responsible for mainstreaming the Corbynist wing of the Democratic party. The party’s anti-Zionists, like Linda Sarsour, have gathered around Sanders. And Sanders himself supported Jeremy Corbyn—ignoring the fears of British Jews, who overwhelmingly saw Corbyn as an anti-Semite. . . . Under President Sanders, those still-renegade voices within the Democratic party would have intimate access to the White House.

And then there’s the video clip of Sanders, taken during his Soviet honeymoon in 1988, sitting bare-chested in a sauna and toasting Soviet officials. That astonishing scene portrays a Jew indifferent to his people’s torment [under Soviet tyranny]. Bernie Sanders is not an enemy of the Jewish people. He simply doesn’t care enough about Jewish concerns to be considered a friend.

President Sanders would be taking office at a time when the stakes could not possibly be higher for Israel. The current low-key Israel-Iran war could transform at any moment into a full-scale, multi-front regional conflict. The IDF has repeatedly warned that, in the next phase of this ongoing war, tens of thousands of missiles and rockets will fall on Israeli cities. Israel, according to the IDF, will respond with a massive invasion of southern Lebanon and the destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure. The Israeli counterattack could widen to include targets in Iran itself.

In that entirely realistic scenario, whose side would President Bernie be on?

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.