On Wednesday, the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website, revealed Zimmerman’s old Facebook post in which she used vulgarity toward Netanyahu.
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In the wake of Zimmerman’s hiring, her past Facebook posts came to light, including one in which she wrote, “Bibi Netanyahu is an arrogant, deceptive, cynical, manipulative asshole”, and “F**k you, Bibi, for daring to insist that you legitimately represent every fraction of the Jewish world”. At the University of California at Berkley, Zimmerman served as the national president of the student branch of J Street, a George Soros-funded Mideast advocacy group that has been critical of Israeli policies.
Open Hillel is a progressive Jewish campus organization that was established in 2012 to counter the “exclusionary” policies of the veteran Hillel organization toward those opposing the policies of the Israeli government.
On Monday, April 11, 2016, I went to Jerusalem’s Zion Square to ask Israelis for their thoughts on Bernie Sanders, the Jewish-American presidential candidate.
The report cites 149 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in 2015, noting that only 77 actually launched attacks, and that the rest were killed at demonstrations or during “routine operations”, and that many posed no threat when they were killed. He has also said he is “not a huge fan” of Netanyahu.
Former Anti-Defamation League head Abe Foxman called earlier Thursday for the Sanders campaign to fire Zimmerman, and Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, issued a statement asking the Sanders campaign to end its relationship with the activist.
Writing in Haaretz in February, Zimmerman said: “No public relations trick can save Israel’s image”.
Zimmerman’s suspension has disappointed many Sanders supporters who have taken to Twitter with the hashtag #IStandWithSimone.
In Thursday night’s debate, though, Mr. Sanders advocated a critical discussion of Israel that, while popular with his young liberal base, was unlikely to please the Jewish establishment figures who had sought to hold a common line on Israel in Democratic politics.
The MSNBC host made clear that Hamas is responsible for the conflict by continuously attacking and launching rockets at Israel, which he said has a right to defend itself, before repeating that “the response was not proportional”.
This, then, is the face of “Jewish outreach” for the Sanders campaign: avowed anti-Zionism and views considered extreme even by many Jews on the left.
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Zimmerman said that throughout her college years at Berkley, she opposed BDS, but that over time, she became more supportive of the rights of pro-BDS groups to be a part of the Jewish communal conversation in Israel. “If Senator Sanders maintains her as his adviser, it will confirm that his views on Israel match hers”, he continued.
