WHY MUSLIM VOTERS LOVE BERNIE SANDERS
AT LAST MONTH’S MESSY DEMOCRATIC debate in Charleston, South Carolina, one of the messiest moments came when Bernie Sanders was asked to address the concerns of American Jews over his Mideast policies. The Vermont Senator firmly voiced his commitment to protect the independence and security of Israel. But he also called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a reactionary racist” and coupled his support for Israel with the view that “you cannot ignore the suffering of the Palestinian people.”
“Bernie is the one candidate who has made the effort to engage our community and speak to us where we are.”
The response likely didn’t win the candidate any new supporters but instead served to solidify feelings about Sanders among two key constituencies: Muslim voters, who are strongly in his corner, and Jewish voters, who are not—even though he may be the first Jewish person to become the presidential nominee of a major political party in the U.S.
In fact, in a national poll of Muslim Democrats released by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) just before primary season got underway this year, Sanders was the clear leader, with 39 percent support to Joe Biden’s 27 percent. The rest of the Democratic contenders were all in single digits. And in the weeks since the poll was released, that support has only seemed to grow stronger.
For many Americans, everything about this development defies well-worn stereotypes about Muslims—that they’re instinctively hostile to or suspicious of Jews and that the dogma of their faith demands they be extreme social conservatives who would
