Bernie Sanders and AOC Mark October 7 Anniversary with False Accusations Against Israel

One year to the day after Hamas slaughtered 1,200 men, women, and children — including 46 Americans — in southern Israel, Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) lashed out with false accusations at the Israeli government.

Sanders’ and AOC’s claims were hardly original — yet coming from two large voices on the left, they deserve a thorough dissection.

To their credit, both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez began their statements by condemning the October 7 massacre as an instance of terrorism — a word that American journalists increasingly refuse to use.

Unfortunately, both quickly pivoted to condemnations of Israel, and specifically its prime minister. According to Sanders, “Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist government” has not just targeted Hamas, but “waged total war against the Palestinian people.”

Yet it is Sanders who apparently can’t distinguish Hamas from the general population of Gaza.

The Vermont senator says that the war (which was started by Hamas) has claimed 41,000 Palestinian lives — a figure produced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health, although Sanders does not mention the source.

Hamas’ reliance on data from unidentified sources is a serious problem, but the more salient point is that its roster of the dead includes thousands upon thousands of Hamas gunmen and soldiers — a point the Hamas ministry does not dispute.

The Israelis estimate there have been 17,000 enemy fighters killed in action. Yet Sanders draws no distinction. It would be like equating dead Al-Qaeda operatives with Afghan civilians during the war that was started by the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Unlike Hamas, Israel is honest about what’s happening in Gaza.

Israel does not pretend that the war claims no civilian lives. Prime Minister Netanyahu said in May that 16,000 people had perished. When Hamas operates out of hospitals, schools, mosques, and UN buildings, it ensures that civilians will suffer. Yet Sanders remains quiet on this point, too.

A word is also in order about Sanders’ characterization of the Israeli government as “extremist.”

Five days after the events of October 7, Netanyahu and opposition leader Benny Gantz formed a national unity government that specifically excluded the most right-wing ministers from the “security cabinet” that would run the war. Yet acknowledging this would make it much harder for Sanders to portray the Israeli government as beyond the pale.

Ocasio-Cortez relies on the same rhetorical sleight-of-hand as her colleague from Vermont.

She claims that Netanyahu is not pursuing Hamas, but “mass revenge.”

She cites the Hamas health ministry’s death toll without attribution while failing to acknowledge it includes thousands upon thousands of enemy fighters killed in action. Then she moves to the claim that Israel is blocking humanitarian aid, “pushing Gaza to the brink of famine.” Sanders emphasized the same point, expressing concern that “many thousands of children facing malnutrition and starvation.”

A generous assessment of these assertions would conclude they are seriously out of date.

Six months ago, conventional wisdom held that famine in Gaza was “imminent.” The source of this forecast was the awkwardly-named but highly influential Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, a UN-backed association of experts. It not only warned that famine would set in by the end of May, but that scores of children would begin dying of hunger each week. It insisted that only a ceasefire could enable the delivery of sufficient aid to prevent a catastrophe.

Israel was determined to prove this wrong.

UN figures showed that 2,874 truckloads of goods entered Gaza in February, or fewer than 100 per day. The number then rose to 4,993 in March and 5,671 in April. The UN has not been able to publish comprehensive figures since the beginning of May, but the Israeli government began to make its own data publicly available. Its online dashboard shows that 6,277 truckloads arrived in May, with the number decreasing gradually in subsequent months. All told, more than 54,000 trucks delivered their cargo to Gaza during the first year of the war.

In late June, the IPC published a revised assessment of the situation in Gaza. The percentage of residents facing the most severe food shortages had fallen from 30 to 15 percent, defying the IPC forecast that the number would rise to 50 percent. There were similar improvements in other categories, and no more talk of imminent famine. A typical headline, however, still read, “Famine will loom over Gaza as long as conflict rages.”

Neither the IPC nor journalists gave Israel much credit, but their fearful predictions never came to pass.

The final charge that Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez level at Netanyahu is that he has “sabotaged” or “undermin[ed]” ceasefire negotiations.

The lawmakers may want to pass this information to the White House, where the National Security Council’s spokesman described Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as “the big obstacle” to a ceasefire, “no questions about it.”

Five years ago, Ocasio-Cortez vented her frustration with those who care more about being “factually and semantically correct” than being “morally right.” Perhaps she and Senator Sanders should consider the possibility that knowing the facts is what leads to being morally right.

David Adesnik is a senior fellow and director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

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