Israeli officials wary of Sanders candidacy for US President

Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders has called Israel's Prime Minister a "reactionary racist", a major Israel lobbying group a "platform for bigotry", and says the US cannot "ignore the suffering" of Palestinians.

TEL AVIV - US Democratic front-runner Bernie Sanders is increasingly drawing the ire of the US Israel lobby as well as officials in Israel itself.

At a fiery Democratic debate in South Carolina on Tuesday, Sanders labeled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "reactionary racist" and said he would consider revising decisions by Donald Trump that have emboldened Israel's far-right government.

Sanders' comments at the debate came the same week that he announced he would skip an appearance before the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, which he called a "platform for bigotry."

"The Israeli people have the right to live in peace and security. So do the Palestinian people," Sanders said on Twitter Sunday in his announcement that he would not attend the AIPAC conference. "I remain concerned about the platform AIPAC provides for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights. For that reason I will not attend their conference."

AIPAC, founded in 1963 with the mission of promoting relations between the US and Israel, has long been seen as a key power player in Washington and a major source of funding for politicians.

Although it has traditionally garnered bipartisan support, tensions with progressive Democrats have increased in recent years - especially among candidates like Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who say the US' campaign finance system favours 'Big Money' political interests such as large corporations, super-rich individuals and the lobbies of wealthy foreign states.

Warren did not attend the AIPAC conference in 2019 and said in February she would skip this year's event as well.

Sanders - who is the son of Polish immigrants and would be the first Jewish president of the US - also skipped the group’s annual event in 2019.

While on the campaign trail, Sanders has called for cutting back some American foreign aid to Israel - the majority of which consists of military aid - and redirecting it to Palestinians instead. Under the Trump administration, the US has cut hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to the Palestinians, which included funding of humanitarian projects - such as health, education and infrastructure.

The Trump administration also ended all US funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. It had previously been the largest donor to UNRWA, giving more than $360m in 2017.

Sanders doubled down at the debate Tuesday, saying: "What you cannot ignore is the suffering of the Palestinian people."

Sanders prefaced his remarks by saying he was "very proud of being Jewish," and noted how he had volunteered in the 1960s on a socialist Israeli kibbutz, where he honed his leftist leanings. But his harsh criticism of modern-day Israeli policies, and embrace of supporters who have called for a boycott of Israel, has raised great concerns in Tel Aviv about his surging candidacy.

Israel's foreign minister denounced Sanders for what he called a "horrifying comment", after the Senator from Vermont said he would "consider" reversing Trump's historic move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem and return it to Tel Aviv.

Under international law, Jerusalem is considered an occupied city, the future of which is meant to be hammered out in peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. Palestinians claim the eastern sector of the city as the capital of a potential Palestinian state.

Israel, however, seized East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War, later annexing it in a move that has not been recognised by the international community. It has also built Jewish-only settlements in East Jerusalem's Palestinian neighbourhoods, in order to establish a Jewish presence in the area, disrupt the contiguity of Palestinian territory and preclude the formation of a viable Palestinian state.

In a daring foray into American domestic politics, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said there was not a Jew in the world who "hasn't dreamed of Jerusalem" and Sanders words were so severe that he had no choice but to retort.

"We don't intervene in the internal American electoral process, which is splendid," Katz told Israel's Army Radio, before claiming that Sanders had a long history of attacking Israel and that Americans who support Israel would not back Sanders' presidential candidacy.

"Naturally, people who support Israel will not support someone who goes against these things," he added.

Yair Lapid, a leading opposition figure who aims to replace Katz as foreign minister after next week's Israeli election, said in a recent TV interview that he was "very worried" about Sanders' rise because of his "lack of understanding of our unique situation in the Middle East."

The majority of American Jews vote Democrat and have been very critical of the Trump presidency. But in Israel, Trump has been warmly embraced by Netanyahu and his far-right allies, which has contributed to undermining the traditional bi-partisan support for Israel in the United States.

Trump, meanwhile, counts on US Evangelical Christians as a key support base. Evangelicals have traditionally been among the staunchest supporters of Israel in the US, due in part to their eschatological beliefs.

Trump has remained very popular among Israeli Jews for delivering to Netanyahu a string of diplomatic achievements. Last month, Trump unveiled a widely-panned Mideast plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It sided with Israel on most of its core demands and granted it sovereignty over large parts of the occupied West Bank that the Palestinians seek for a future state.