By any measure, the senior US Senator from the State of Vermont, has become one of the most prominent American critics of Israel. Since the Hamas and Hezbollah wars of the past decade, his voice has carried growing weight within the progressive arm of the Democratic Party—and increasingly, within the broader Western conversation about the conflict.

Some of his concerns resonate. Palestinian suffering is real, and it deserves recognition. This recognition needs to include non-Israeli sources.

But Senator Sanders’ overall framing of Israel is not just incomplete. It is fundamentally wrong—historically, morally, and strategically. At the core of the problem is context—or in his case, the lack of it.

Senator Sanders routinely presents the Israeli–Palestinian conflict as a story of overwhelming Israeli power versus Palestinian victimhood. It is a clean narrative. It is also a misleading one. Israel did not choose this conflict, nor does it have the luxury of opting out of it. It lives under constant threat—north, south, and east—from militias that have repeatedly made clear that their objective is not coexistence, but elimination.

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