In 2004, while President George W. Bush was running for re-election, he developed a sinister reputation for aggressively banishing political dissent from his events. Bush “rewrote the playbook for organizing campaign rallies,” USA Today declared, ejecting from them people who scrawled anti-war messages on signs and shirts. The ACLU sued and successfully settled with the federal government over one couple’s thwarted attempts to wear anti-Bush t-shirts to a 2004 rally. One political science professor even compared Bush to Richard Nixon over the suppressive behavior at these events.
Fast forward to 2015, this past Saturday, when Bernie Sanders, an increasingly viable contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, held one of his biggest campaign rallies to date, drawing more than 20,000 people to an event at the Boston convention center. Among those visitors were a number of young activists from Boston Students for Justice in Palestine, who were curious about Sanders’ position on the occupied territories. They had a sign with them; in a playful nod to one of Sanders’ campaign slogans, it simply asked, “Will Ya Feel The Bern For Palestine?” The activists say they were well-received by other Sanders supporters in the crowd.
But staffers working for a candidate widely viewed as one of the most progressive members of the Senate were apparently not happy. Security was made aware of a threat: Some students who support Sanders were holding a sign with a question on it. A tactic right out of the Bush campaign “playbook” went into action.
“They told us to either put the sign away or leave,” said Sana Hashmani, one of the student activists. “We asked why, and they said that Bernie’s campaign staff had said the sign had to go.”
There had been no signs of trouble previously. The pro-Palestine group was doing nothing unusual — except, perhaps, for daring to question Sanders about territories occupied by Israel, of which Sanders has been a not-entirely-progressive supporter. “When we got there and entered the overflow space with our sign, people were supporting us and taking pictures, and other people had signs talking about various social issues as well,” Hashmani said.
In a brief cell phone video of the incident, security staff can be seen threatening to arrest the students if they didn’t leave the premises.
Two days after the students were ejected, a day after the group posted about the encounter on Facebook, a Sanders 2016 spokesperson acknowledged a campaign staffer was behind the ejection and that an error had been made. “What happened was a poor decision by a low-level staffer and doesn’t reflect campaign policy,” the spokesperson said.
To a certain extent, the episode reflects an underlying tension between Sanders’ base of young progressives and his comparatively friendly posture toward Israel. A 2014 Pew Research Center poll found minority and millennial Democrats markedly more critical of Israeli military actions. At a town hall event last August, Sanders lost his temper with supporters who had interrupted him to question him about U.S. support for Israel, telling them to “shut up,” and attempting to change the subject to ISIS. During Israel’s 2014 military campaign against the Gaza Strip a plurality of Democrats described the action as “unjustified,” while Sanders was part of the unanimous Senate consent supporting Israel’s actions. He has continued to defend the “Protective Edge” operation as a legitimate act of self-defense, albeit one in which Israel “overreacted.”
Even Sanders’ support for a two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict, which he progressively advocated before it became mainstream U.S. orthodoxy, now seems out of touch; a 2014 Brookings Institute poll found a majority of Americans favored a more radical one-state solution to the conflict, were a two-state solution to become unfeasible.
But the ejection of pro-Palestine students from the Sanders rally surfaced a bigger question with a potentially more disturbing answer: Can this candidate, beloved by the left wing, learn to cope more tolerantly with protest and dissent?
Already, Sanders has been criticized for his handling of Black Lives Matter protesters at his events. Boston Students for Justice in Palestine are also worried about a tendency to marginalize, rather than engage, critics.
“What concerns us most,” read a post about the incident on the group’s Facebook page, “about being unwelcome in this political space on the basis of a sign is not what is says about Bernie’s stance on Palestine, but rather, his team’s refusal to entertain diverse viewpoints. Is this how Bernie is going to answer those, supporters and non-supporters alike, who ask challenging questions about his views? Just silencing them?”
In recent months, Sanders has been transformed from an obscure candidate into a potent challenger to Hillary Clinton. This effort has come in large part due to a committed progressive base, who contribute not just by attending Sanders rallies but financially, with small individual donations that have become a tidal wave, helping the candidate stay competitive. For this young base, the suggestion that his campaign is unreceptive to their views, perhaps even willing to silence them, is particularly dispiriting.
“The way they reacted to us trying to bring up this issue was very aggressive,” said Jose Godoy, one of the students ejected from the event. “They singled us out, and didn’t seem to want this issue to be brought up at all.”
That view was echoed by Ibrahim Sumaira, who said, “We look up to Bernie Sanders on a lot of issues, but we don’t want the same thing to happen where we believed that Barack Obama would meaningfully change foreign policy and nothing of that sort ended up occurring.”
Update: Added comment from the Sanders campaign, responding to a prior request from The Intercept. Oct 5 11:50 pm.
Correction: A previous version of the story identified the “shut up” incident as taking place in August 2015, whereas it should have indicated August 2014.
Update: Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver has indicated the staffer responsible for the ejections has been removed from their position, and reiterated the decision to remove the students does not reflect campaign policy.
Bernie is jewish, and he knows the establishment(and is part of it)and is probably just playing the democracy game so the American sheep can think they’re still free. jesse ventura said it well when he said the press appearances are like staged wrestling.
“Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver has indicated the staffer responsible for the ejections has been removed from their position, and reiterated the decision to remove the students does not reflect campaign policy.”
That’s all good and well. And pray tell Mr. Weaver what exactly IS Mr. Sanders policy regarding Palestine and the rights of the Palestinian people? One state? Two states? No state? Does Mr. Sanders have the courage to state and stand behind his position on this important issue that affects all Americans? It’s a simple question. Please provide a simple answer.
All part of the plan to DEM edge Sanders out; and BushCObamanable BILLARY Back in!
This is a blatant hit piece on Sanders, outright stating, in the headline and the text, that low level, former employee’s, thoughts and actions, represent Senator Sanders’ thoughts and actions.
A new rag already trashing its own credibility.
So what else is new? Even Elizabeth Warren had to parrot the identical position. Did I miss the article critiquing her for it?
Hah! There was one on her at the time.
I read this article with interest, but when I got to the corrections at the end, it seemed actually fairly egregious that they are not at the front, with either a rewrite of the whole article, or a couple paragraphs up front reframing it. Unless the author believes the Sanders campaign is insincere, the fact that they opposed this action and disciplined the staffer means that this whole event is about one or two over-zealous staffers, not about Sanders. I support holding candidates’ feet to the fire, but you have to be honest about it. Putting significant corrections at the end with only a minor tweak to the article is not being honest.
Yes, I agree. I think this is one of those catnip articles with the “hook” headline. I personally think Bernie should be given as much latitude as possible on this subject. He seems like a decent man.
Although there are so many people who are “decent” except when it comes to the subject of Israel/Palestine. So who knows, maybe I’m wrong and maybe this is the kind of pressure required.
I don’t know. But I do love Bernie.
HOLY SHIT WHY ARE THE JEWS WARNING US ABOUT ELITE JEWS.
Robert Downey Jr. (a Jew himself) BEGS THE JEW’S TO FORGIVE MEL GIBSON!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvfM3EW2DG8watch?v=rvfM3EW2DG8
Seth MacFarlane (a Jew himself) is taking heat over his Jews-control-Hollywood @ the Oscars…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp92q38OKEQwatch?v=Qp92q38OKEQ
HOLY SHIT WHY IS THE GODFATHER (MARLON BRANDO) WARNING US ABOUT THE ELITE JEWS
The Godfather (Marlon Brando) is VERY GOD DAMN ANGRY at Jews in Hollywood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv4UOwAWhpU
Kind of misleading that the statement by the Sanders campaign clarifying that this incident was due to unauthorized action by a low-level staffer who has since been dismissed is not right up front here.
LOL. Gotta laugh at this worthless, disgusting, idiotic BDS activist riff-raff and their “journalistic” fellow-travelers.
Keep up the fight comrades, your Palestine “from the river to the sea” is just around the corner.
*chuckle*
CHUCKLE…im laughing at a worthless, disgusting, idiotic IDF riff-raff that only exists cuz of our US tax dollars. get yourself a real country and not a welfare state madeinusa…CHUCKLE…u Zionists are a riot..CHUCKLE…the Nazis of the Middle East…CHUCKLE…VIVA PALESTINE!!!
Louise, Louise, Louise… you’re not chuckling buddy. Nobody’s buying it. Give up the act.
You’re wrong, as always, dear.
Nothing is as chuckle-worthy as the decades-long deranged delusions of “Palestinians” and their moronic Western enablers, and their insane hope that – if they only try the failed strategy of attacking Israel, losing the war that they started, and then begging West for charity like the filthy pathetic losers that they are once more – *this* will be the time Israel gets eradicated.
You’re such an extremist Louise. I don’t hear anybody talking about “eradicating” anybody, other than Israeli soldiers trying to eradicate teenage palestinian boys.
And yes, do give up the act. you sound like you’re about to have a heart attack. I can hear you screaming through your quotation marks, and I can feel your face forming permanent scream lines as you write.
You better check yourself darling.
And everybody already knows the situation. everybdy knows who the charity recipient is, and how they get their charity. You ain’t foolin nobody nomore. Those days are over. The internet is here :)
Have a good scream. Shatter a glass.
“Israeli soldiers trying to eradicate teenage palestinian boys.”
Aww.
You sound like a sweet German in the 1940s
Palestine is a terrorist-run organ