Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

The Nation Endorses Bernie Sanders — Makes No Mention of Israel

The Nation endorsed Bernie Sanders for president — its third endorsement in 150 years.

The storied left-wing magazine on Thursday cited the Vermont Independent senator’s record in opposing “inequality, both economic and political.” It had offered previous endorsements of the Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1988 and Barack Obama in 2008.

“America’s middle class has melted away, while the gap between rich and poor has reached Gilded Age extremes,” the editorial said.

The magazine’s editors said they wished Sanders would expound more on foreign policy, but added they liked what they heard.

“An opponent of the Iraq War from the start, he criticizes the notion of ‘regime change’ and the presumption that America alone must police the world. He rejects a new Cold War with Russia,” the editorial said. “He supports the nuclear-weapons agreement with Iran, and he would devote new energy to dismantling nuclear arsenals and pursuing nonproliferation.”

The weekly journal said Sanders’ main opponent in the Democratic primaries, front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, was preferable to any of the Republicans in the race and praised her “intelligence, grit and strength,” but said she tends too much toward compromise with Republicans.

Notably, The Nation, which has featured anti-Zionists prominently on its pages as well as some pro-Israel voices, did not cite Sanders’ posture on Israel.

Sanders, who is Jewish and lived in Israel for a period in the 1960s, has been critical of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians but has also adamantly defended Israel’s right to exist.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.