‘Israel Has a Right To Defend Itself’ Is Just a Slogan for Genocide

By Caitlin Johnstone – Apr 17, 2025

Bernie Sanders has been repeatedly uttering the phrase “Israel has a right to defend itself” on his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, which in the year 2025 can only be interpreted as genocide apologia.

Israel does not have “a right to defend itself” against an occupied population in a giant concentration camp. Under international law it has a right to end the occupation, and that’s it. “Israel has a right to defend itself” is just a slogan people say when they want to justify supplying an ongoing genocide.

At one point in the tour Sanders stood passively watching as police dragged off rally attendees who draped a Free Palestine flag over the US flag during his speech. He just awkwardly continued monologuing as their flag was confiscated and they were forcibly removed, even as the crowd booed and eventually began chanting “Free Palestine”.

at his rally today in LA Bernie Sanders once again repeated the same old genocidal Zionist hasbara "Israel has the right to defend itself" line. He is doing this 18 months into a genocide that he refuses to recognize. He is an irredeemable moral monster. An utterly depraved freak pic.twitter.com/Wg6xqqx5Ar
— ☀️👀 (@zei_squirrel) April 13, 2025

Sanders has been mixing his support for Israel in with periodic criticisms of Netanyahu and the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza, always taking care to make his criticisms about the behavior of Israel’s current leadership and not the nature of the racist apartheid state itself.

Sanders is doing this for two reasons. Firstly, he is working to galvanize a big tent inclusive coalition of Democrats in opposition to Trump, and he wants that big tent to include people who think genocide is bad and people who think genocide is fine. He doesn’t want to offend the pro-genocide liberals.

Secondly, Sanders is doing this because he himself is a Zionist. Like other liberal Zionists, Bernie Sanders upholds a vision of an Israel that has never, ever existed: one which remains an ethnostate dominated by Jews, but which conducts itself in a kind and just manner, without constantly murdering and abusing Palestinians.

Genocide as the Principal Cause of the Democrats’ Crushing Defeat

This iteration of the state of Israel is a fiction. An imaginary fantasy land, like Narnia. Everything about Israel is stacked against the possibility of such a status quo ever emerging, and Israel has always done everything it can to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.

By pretending it is possible to have the Zionist entity and also have peace and justice, liberal Zionists help manufacture public consent for continuing to feed weapons to the genocidal apartheid state of Israel.

When liberal Zionists want to support Israel’s actions, they talk about Israel as a nation, e.g. “Israel has a right to defend itself.” When liberal Zionists want to criticize Israel’s actions, they make it all about Netanyahu, e.g. “Netanyahu’s war machine.”

some anti-genocide people unfurled a Free Palestine flag behind Bernie Sanders at his rally just now and police thugs arrested them as Bernie Sanders looked on and let it happen without saying a word. A minute earlier Sanders said "Israel has the right to defend itself" and… pic.twitter.com/YSecTWCYUX
— ☀️👀 (@zei_squirrel) April 15, 2025

The framing is that when Israel deserves our sympathy it’s a collective, but when Israel is naughty the responsibility lies solely at the feet of one bad apple. This ensures that the weapons can keep flowing to Israel (because Israel as a whole is virtuous and worthy of support) while the liberal Zionist still gets to wear their progressive humanitarian clothing (because they wagged their fingers at Netanyahu).

And it’s just a complete and utter lie. Netanyahu didn’t create Israel’s genocidal tendencies, Israel’s genocidal tendencies created Netanyahu. His entire political career has been made possible by Israel’s collective racism and psychopathy upon which he rode into office.

This is nothing other than the classic Obama-style tactic of using attractive progressivish language to advance the most destructive agendas of the US empire.

In other words, it’s Democrats being Democrats.

History will condemn this genocide and all who took part in it, directly, though support, or through complacency. An enormous and indelible crime has been and continues to be committed. The incomprehensible evil of this moment will be written out in black and white forever. pic.twitter.com/BZKf0df7gy
— Clare Daly (@ClareDalyIRL) April 15, 2025

(Consortium News)