Cornel West Turns on Bernie Sanders for Refusing To Call for Gaza Ceasefire: ‘Getting Pretty Pathetic’

YouTube/Status Coup News

Independent presidential candidate Cornel West turned on his “dear brother” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Wednesday for refusing to call for a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

During an interview with Status Coup News, West said:

My dear brother Bernie and I, we had a wonderful, very intense debate during the campaign about the Middle East because he was one of the most outspoken in terms of critique of the right-wing government, the neo-fascism that’s running things right now, and he’s always been critical of Netanyahu, but he was critical of my supporting BDS, and we’d have our arguments back and forth. But it’s, it’s— I think it’s very sad that the most he can call for is a pause. Genocidal processes going on and you calling for a pause? And that get’s vetoed by your president and by your U.N. ambassador! You say, brother Bernie man, this is— this is reaching the point where it’s getting pathetic now, man. The pause is the best you can come up with, given this situation? Then this is getting pretty pathetic.

West went on to argue that “if there were a Palestinian occupation, domination of precious Jewish brothers and sisters, if in fact 4,700 precious Jewish babies had been killed in two months, over 11,000 precious Jewish brothers and sisters and siblings killed by Palestinians or even by Arabs, believe me, you, the U.S. government would be supporting the Jewish version of Hamas!”

While Sanders has said that Israel does not have the right “to kill thousands of thousands of innocent men, women and children who had nothing to do” with Hamas’ October 7 attack, he has rejected calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

“I don’t know how you can have a ceasefire, a permanent ceasefire, with an organization like Hamas, which is dedicated to turmoil and chaos and destroying the State of Israel,” he told CNN.

Sanders received support from AIPAC over his rejection of a ceasefire, but criticism from former staffers and progressives.

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