Shira Hanau’s article “Moderate Jewish Democrats alarmed at Sanders’ rise” and Andrew Silow-Carroll’s column “Bernie’s AIPAC snub throws liberal Zionists under the bus” (Feb. 27) highlight what many pro-Israel loyal Democrats fear: the danger of Bernie Sanders. Whether he is a full socialist, or as he says a Democratic Socialist, he is just like Britain’s former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn when he follows the Socialist International attack line against Israel and the Jews.

In saying that AIPAC provides a platform “for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights,” Sanders is implying it is Israel’s fault that the Palestinians do not have civil rights and that it is a bigoted apartheid state.

It is actually the surrounding Arab states and the Palestinian Authority (PA) that deny civil rights to the Palestinians living among them in UNRWA camps. It is Abbas’ PA, in the 15th year of his four-year term, that runs a police state and denies civil rights to the Palestinians, 98 percent of whom live under the PA in Area A. Polls show that Israeli Arabs treasure their Israeli civil rights and do not wish to live in the West Bank under the PA.

With his distorted bigoted attack on AIPAC and its supporters, Sanders wishes to drive a wedge between Israel and the U.S. and between those in the U.S. who support Israel — both Democrats and Republicans, many of whom are Jewish — and his progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

C. Friedman