Portside

Yesterday the Bernie Sanders campaign released the speech Sanders would have given to AIPAC had the presidential hopeful been allowed to show a pre-recorded message at the pro-Israel lobby’s annual policy conference.

Unlike Clinton, and all the Republican presidential candidates who spoke at AIPAC, Sanders called attention to Palestinian human rights issues. He said security meant “achieving self-determination, civil rights, and economic wellbeing for the Palestinian people.” Sanders also said peace meant ending the “occupation of Palestinian territory.”

Many of the most alarming statements and policy proposals Donald Trump has made are already reality in Israel, and supported by AIPAC.

Prominent Jewish Americans, including former officials of AIPAC, in a full-page ad in the New York Times,urged Congress to support the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -the agreement between Tehran and six world powers. Many of the signers have devoted decades to building and enhancing Israel's security and strengthening the US-Israel alliance, designed to counter claims by some on the American right that no supporter of Israel could endorse the agreement.

A tour of the "real Israel" would show members of Congress the ugly truth behind Israel's propaganda.

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Chris Hedges gave this speech Saturday at the Sauk County Fairgrounds in Baraboo, Wis., before a crowd of about 2,000. His address followed one there by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who seems to be preparing to run in the Democratic presidential primaries. The Fighting Bob Fest, the annual event at which they appeared, brings together progressive speakers from around the country and honors Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette (1855-1925).

In the repressive one-state reality of today's Israel, which Mr. Netanyahu clearly wishes to make permanent, we need a joint Israeli-Palestinian movement to attain those rights and the full equality they imply. Only such a movement can lay the groundwork for the necessary compromises that will allow the two peoples' national cultures to flourish. They should know that Israel is not Judaism. Jewish history did not culminate in the creation of the state of Israel.