The new Jewish outreach coordinator for the Bernie Sanders campaign was suspended Thursday, after just two days in the role for vocal criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the New York Times reports.
Advertisement
Zimmerman edited the post on March 3, 2015, changing asshole to “politician” and the second expletive to “shame on you”. He has also said he is “not a huge fan” of Netanyahu.
“Our efforts and preparations are ongoing; we did not, and will not, back down”, he said, “We are also holding talks with Arab countries, through Egypt, and with representatives of various regional, and worldwide countries”. Zimmerman has been involved in left-wing activism around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for years, supporting positions such as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel that mainstream Jewish organizations strongly oppose.
Zimmerman’s suspension has disappointed many Sanders supporters who have taken to Twitter with the hashtag #IStandWithSimone. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio”. “Was Israel’s response disproportion disproportionate?”.Sanders, who said that he was “uncomfortable” talking about himself and his background, opened up about how, as a young child, he had been brought to tears when he found out that his father’s family had been destroyed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
She recalled one scenario in 2012 when she negotiated a ceasefire recalling that Israelis couldn’t make the attacks stop ‘because they couldn’t find anybody to talk to to tell them to stop it’.
In a column which she wrote for Haaretz in February, she contended, “We are doing this [opposing what she considers the occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel] out of love for our community and love for our neighbors”. The problem is rampant racism in Israeli society. It’s hard to seek peace when there’s a terrorist group in Gaza that doesn’t want you to exist, Clinton said.
“The smear campaign being waged against Simone Zimmerman is a reflection of how out-of-touch the American Jewish establishment is with the Jewish community”, said Yonah Lieberman, who co-founded If Not Now with Zimmerman and others.
Advertisement
She criticized Netanyahu for trying to “derail” the Iranian nuclear negotiations and for leading the charge into Gaza, where roughly 1,500 Palestinian civilians were killed during the 2014 invasion. A Pew survey on American attitudes toward Israel past year showed that more Democrats viewed the Israeli prime minister unfavorably (35 percent) than favorably (28 percent), although most had no opinion at all. When Tapper referred to the former ambassador to the USA and current Knesset member Michael Oren, Sanders replied: “Who is Mr. Oren?”
