Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Senator who ran unsuccessfully in the last presidential primaries, has reportedly recorded a soon-to-be-released video announcing that he will run in the next presidential campaign.
The video production reported in Politico accompanied reports that the Sanders campaign team was interviewing people for top positions.
Sanders, a self-declared socialist, won 23 primaries and caucuses and approximately 43 percent of pledged delegates, to Hillary Clinton’s 55 percent.
Sanders, 77-years old, is Jewish and volunteered on a kibbutz when young. He criticized Israel’s actions during the 2014 Gaza war. He also came out with public statements cautioning against “Islamophobia” after attacks by the Islamic State (ISIS) in Paris in 2015. He also criticized U.S. military aid to Israel.
More recently, Sanders blasted Republican-backed legislation that protected states that penalize backers of the anti-Israel Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Sanders garnered strong support from the Muslim community in his run for the presidential nomination. He returned the favor recently when Rep. Ilhan Omar was criticized for anti-Semitic tweets. Sanders called Omar and publicly supported her.
“I talked to Ilhan last night to give her my personal support,” Sanders reportedly said on the call. “We will stand by our Muslim brothers and sisters,” Sanders said in a statement last week.
As of February 2019, 182 individuals have filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for President in the Democratic Party primary, including at least nine major candidates.
Source: Israel in the News
