That Time Bernie Sanders’s Jewish Outreach Chief Dropped F-Bomb on Benjamin Netanyahu
Simone Zimmerman, the newly hired national Jewish outreach coordinator for the Bernie Sanders campaign, called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “manipulative asshole” last year in a Facebook post.
“Bibi Netanyahu is an arrogant, deceptive, cynical, manipulative asshole,” Zimmerman, a former J Street student activist, wrote on Facebook in March 2015, according to the Washington-based Free Beacon.
“F— you, Bibi, for daring to insist that you legitimately represent even a fraction of the Jews in this world, for your consistent fear-mongering, for pushing Israel in word and deed, farther and farther away from the international community, and most importantly, for trying to derail a potentially historic diplomatic deal with Iran and thus trying to distract the world from the fact that you sanctioned the murder of over 2,000 people this summer …,” the post continued.
Zimmerman edited the post on March 3, 2015, changing asshole to “politician” and the second expletive to “shame on you.”
During the Gaza war in the summer of 2014, which she was referring to in the Facebook post, Zimmerman was one of the leaders of a group of young Jews that held regular protest vigils outside the offices of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, reading the names of Palestinians and Israelis killed in the conflict.
Zimmerman opposes Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, wants Hillel to allow participation by groups that support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, is against Jewish federation funding for Israeli projects in the West Bank and wrote favorably of the efforts of Jewish Voice for Peace, a pro-BDS group, to get “international corporations to stop profiting off human rights abuses.”
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.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO