Bernie's Bogus Blood Libel

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Saying Israel killed 10k when you meant to say wounded 10k: NOT A BLOOD LIBEL

Saying all Muslims are murderers: BASICALLY A BLOOD LIBEL

— DovBear(@DovBear) April 8, 2016

Hey Bernie critics, I think you need to learn what a blood libel is. Hint: its not a sloppy mistake about numbers.

Look. Clearly Sanders is not a RW Likudnik. And I understand that, for some of you, that makes it a mitzvah to attack him with no pretense of decency. But the rest of us have looked at the transcript and it's utterly clear that Sanders was not sure about the number, and neither was the person conducting the interview. They were just fumbling around. See for yourself:

Daily News: Do you support the Palestinian leadership's attempt to use the International Criminal Court to litigate some of these issues to establish that, in their view, Israel had committed essentially war crimes?

Sanders: No.

Daily News: Why not?

Sanders: Why not?

Daily News: Why not, why it...

Sanders: Look, why don't I support a million things in the world? I'm just telling you that I happen to believe...

[DB: Pay attention to what happened here. Sanders was asked if he thought Israel had committed war crimes. He answered no. ]

anybody help me out here, because I don't remember the figures, but my recollection is over 10,000 innocent people were killed in Gaza. Does that sound right?

Daily News: I think it's probably high, but we can look at that.

Sanders: I don't have it in my number...but I think it's over 10,000. My understanding is that a whole lot of apartment houses were leveled. Hospitals, I think, were bombed. So yeah, I do believe and I don't think I'm alone in believing that Israel's force was more indiscriminate than it should have been.

Daily News: Okay. We will check the facts. I don't want to venture a number that I'm not sure on, but we will check those facts. Now, talk about Hamas. What is it? Is it a terrorist organization?

Sanders: Yes.

Daily News: Okay. Hezbollah too?

Sanders: Yes.

In the same interview Sanders confirmed that Hamas used civilians shields and he condemned Hamas for the rocket attacks. Again, the man isn't a RW Likudnik but that doesn't mean he's naive or unfair.

Dovid Kanarfogel via Facebook: The point is that that exchange about the number is presented as removed from a context where he says, without hesitation or qualification, that Israel has not committed war crimes and both Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations. Those are not meant to be remarkable claims to you, for sure, but they stand in actual and stark contrast to actual anti-Israel people. So to lump him in with them in any way based on the number error (which was qualified, if not as much as you would have liked) is completely unjustified.

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