“The possibility, if not yet probability, that in the final showdown Sanders could face Michael Bloomberg is American Jewish history gone berserk.”

“The possibility, if not yet probability, that in the final showdown Sanders could face Michael Bloomberg is American Jewish history gone berserk. As the Eagles noted in ‘Hotel California,’ ‘This could be heaven or this could be hell’ – but the odds are in favor of the latter,” remarks Chemi Shalev, a columnist for the English language Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Indeed, it could be “heaven” or “hell” but depending for whom, given the two candidates offer two completely contrasting visions regarding the rule-of-law, equality, fairness, civil rights, racial justice, and, of course, Israel. Two American Jews who promise diametrically opposed outcomes for blacks, immigrants, Arabs, Muslims, and the Palestinian people. The pair could not be cut from a more different cloth.
Sanders participated in the March on Washington DC in 1963 with the Reverend Martin Luther King. Bloomberg targeted black communities with racially discriminatory policies in the 2000s. Sanders was one of the first elected lawmakers in the country to humanize Muslims and untangle them from the “war on terror” discourse in the post-9/11 era.
Bloomberg, on the other hand, established and oversaw a sweeping mass surveillance operation against law abiding Muslim Americans, flooding predominately Muslim neighborhoods with undercover agents to “map” and monitor which mosques, restaurants, bookstores, cafes, nightclubs, bars, and even food cart vendors Muslims favored and frequented, while spying on their every movement in a way that made a mockery of the US Constitution.

In 2015, a federal court compared Bloomberg’s mass surveillance of the city’s Muslim population with the discrimination endured by “Jewish Americans during the Red Scare, African Americans during the Civil Rights movement, and Japanese-Americans during World War II.”

In 2015, a federal court compared Bloomberg’s mass surveillance of the city’s Muslim population with the discrimination endured by “Jewish Americans during the Red Scare, African Americans during the Civil Rights movement, and Japanese-Americans during World War II.”
Given his track record as mayor over the country’s most internationally recognizable city, it’s impossible to imagine Bloomberg offering a fundamentally alternative outcome than the kind US President Donald Trump and his “Muslim travel ban” have heaped on Muslim Americans and their families.
On Israel, Bloomberg’s views towards the Palestinians and pro-Palestinian human rights groups and movements are also equally as hostile as the current occupant of the White House, thus putting great distance between himself and the international law and human rights-based views of his direct opponent: Sanders.
Whereas Sanders has called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “racist,” and included Israel among the world’s worst human rights violators, Bloomberg has falsely accused BDS supporters of wanting Israelis to be “massacred.”
When the Israeli military murdered more than 2,000 Palestinians during its 2014 invasion of Gaza, Sanders criticized the government for its “disproportionate” response to Hamas rocket fire. On the 2016 campaign trail, Sanders remindedreporters, “I condemned the bombing of hospitals, schools, and refugee camps. Today, Gaza is still largely in ruins. The international community must come together to help Gaza recover.”
Bloomberg, on the other hand, defended the Israeli military’s bombing of a UN school during Operation Protective Edge, an act the Obama administration described as “totally indefensible.”
“Israel cannot have a proportional response if people are firing rockets at their citizens,” he told Face the Nation, adding, “Nobody is attacking schools or hospitals. We are attacking Hamas. But Hamas is standing in the middle of a hospital. If they had– standing in the middle of a hospital and firing rockets at your kids, what would you expect us to do? Would you really want us to not try to stop them?”
Whereas Sanders has promised to resolve the conflict in an even-handed and nuanced manner and in a way that’s consistent with international law, Bloomberg parrots the kind of talking points long associated with American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In doing so, he denies the realities and contours of the conflict, specifically Israel’s occupation, colonization, and blockade of the Palestinian territories, and the system of apartheid that rules over 2 million Palestinian Israeli citizens.

AIPAC is now interfering in the 2020 election by funding anti-Sanders Political Action Committees (Super PACs) because of his opposition to unconditional support for Israel.

The fact AIPAC is now interfering in the 2020 election by funding anti-Sanders Political Action Committees (Super PACs) because of his opposition to unconditional support for Israel demonstrates the threat Sanders poses the fifty year-long status quo in the Palestinian territories. Sanders’ promise to use US military aid as leverage to encourage Israel to return to the negotiating table with the Palestinian leadership is the source of the lobby’s rising angst.
If you pick any aspect of US foreign policy, you’ll find Bloomberg siding with the powerful, and Sanders with the powerless. For instance, Sanders has called Saudi Arabia’s rulers “murderous thugs.” Bloomberg has praised Crown Prince MbS for taking the country in the “right direction,” even after it became known he ordered the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Evidently, Sanders offers a much different foreign policy vision to the one espoused by Bloomberg. Whereas the former sees the world through a post-colonial posited lens, Bloomberg sees it in realpolitik terms.
Where Bloomberg supports the relentless pursuit of power in an anarchical international system, Sanders tends to be more vocal in his support for social justice causes.
To Shalev’s point, the 2020 US presidential race may or not produce “hell,” but it’s pretty clear that Bloomberg, at the very least, promises hotter and nastier weather.


by CJ Werleman

First published: https://insidearabia.com/sanders-and-bloomberg-two-opposing-visions-for-muslims-arabs-and-palestinians/