Bernie Sanders Compares Poverty in Baltimore to Conditions in ‘Palestine’

By JTA April 25, 2016

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at a campaign stop in Baltimore compared poverty in areas of the city to conditions “in the West Bank in Palestine.”

“Poverty in Baltimore, and around this country, is a death sentence,” Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, said Saturday. RealClearPolitics published a video of the speech on its website.

“Fifteen neighborhoods in Baltimore have lower life expectancies than North Korea. Two have a higher infant mortality rate than the West Bank in Palestine… Baltimore teenagers between the ages of fifteen and nineteen face poorer health conditions and a worse economic outlook than those in distressed cities in Nigeria, India, China and South Africa,” Sanders said.

Maryland is one of five states holding primary elections on Tuesday. In addition to Maryland, voters will go to the polls in Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

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