Sanders’ DNC platform team pushes for Palestinian rights, blasts Israeli war crimes
Ben Norton
Salon.com
The Bernie Sanders camp continues its push for Palestinian rights.
Two of the members of the Democratic Party’s platform drafting committee who were appointed by Sen. Sanders have criticized Israel and called for a more even-handed approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict, The New York Times reported.
Cornel West, the renowned scholar and activist, and James Zogby, a longtime pro-Palestinian advocate and president of the Arab American Institute, condemned Israel’s illegal nearly five-decade-long military occupation of the Palestinian territories on Wednesday.
Both argued that the Democratic Party is increasingly out of touch with its rank-and-file supporters, more and more of whom oppose the Israeli government for its crimes against the Palestinians.
“Justice for Palestinians cannot be attained without the lifting of the occupation,” West said in an interview cited by the Times.
He stressed that the Democratic Party platform needs to bring more balance to “the plight of an occupied people.”
West also accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of war crimes. Leading human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have said the Israeli military committed war crimes in its 51-day assault on the densely populated Gaza Strip.
Zogby similarly called for a more balanced approach. “Any honest assessment would say that the debate on this issue has shifted over the last 30 years and the platform has reflected that but lagged slightly behind, and it’s now time to catch up,” he said in an interview. “Clearly most Democrats agree. But we will see what happens.”
Support for Palestinians is growing among Americans, particularly among progressives and the youth, according to a poll published by Pew earlier this month.
Liberal Democrats and supporters of Sanders are now more likely to support the Palestinians than Israel, Pew found. Just 33 percent of liberal Democrats would support Israel in a dispute, while 40 percent would back the Palestinians.
Among supporters of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, 39 percent back the Palestinians, while 33 percent support Israel.
Sanders has helped change the discourse on Israel-Palestine in the U.S. He has publicly criticized Israel’s 2014 bombing campaign in Gaza, echoing human rights organizations and the U.N., which accused the Israeli military of carrying out disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks that amount to war crimes, as even the U.S. State Department has acknowledged.
Source: www.salon.com