Israeli PM Netanyahu lashes out at Bernie Sanders for boycotting AIPAC

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at Democratic United States candidate Bernie Sanders who boycotted the leading pro-Israel US lobby which reportedly laid bare divisions among the Democrats. Sanders stayed away from the annual conference of AIPAC and had said that the platform was for “leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights” and denounced Netanyahu as a “reactionary racist”. 

However, according to reports, while addressing the conference by satellite on March 1 which is also the eve of Israeli elections, Netanyahu lashed on US presidential hopeful who can be the first Jewish President of the United States. The Israeli PM said that “this year AIPAC was accused of providing a platform for bigotry” and then added that “these libellous charges are outrageous”. Furthermore, Netanyahu acknowledged the thousands of attendees at the event which according to him, “send a powerful message to all those who seek to weaken our great alliance that they will fail."

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'Don't want Sanders at AIPAC'

According to reports, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon, a member of Netanyahu's Likud Party was more direct while attacking Sanders and said that “we don't want Sanders at AIPAC”. He further added that he doesn't “want him in Israel”. According to Danon, anyone “who calls our Prime Minister a 'racist' is either a liar, an ignorant fool or both”.

US Senator and now emerging as the frontrunner in the race for the White House, reportedly lived on a kibbutz in Israel in the 1960s  and calls himself a supporter of the Jewish state but has raised his opinion towards Israel's rightward turn. The Israeli PM has defamed country's Arab minority and has even vowed to annex most of the occupied West Bank if he secured another term in the elections of March 2. 

Netanyahu also called the Palestinians “the pampered children of the international community” and even voiced confidence that the US would recognise the annexation in the same lines it presented the controversial Middle East peace plan presented a month ago by US President Donald Trump.

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(With agency inputs)