Simone Zimmerman is active in organizations that ignore Israeli grievances in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and whitewash Palestinian terrorism. She also cursed Israel’s prime minister in a Facebook post last year, virtually accusing him of war crimes.
The presidential campaign of Democratic primary candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) has hired Simone Zimmerman, an outspoken critic of Israeli government policies as its Jewish outreach coordinator.
Simone Zimmerman is active in the self-described “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby J Street and the “Open Hillel” movement—both of which have been criticized in the Jewish community for ignoring Israeli grievances in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and whitewashing Palestinian terrorism. Open Hillel rejects the Hillel campus umbrella organization’s guidelines on shunning partnerships with anti-Israel groups, while J Street has also been scrutinized for co-sponsoring events with anti-Israel organizations. Zimmerman has also been involved with IfNotNow, a new movement of young American Jews who oppose Israeli control in the disputed territories.
In a February op-ed for Haaretz, Zimmerman outlined her views on Israel, including her perceptions on what she called “grave injustices committed by the Jewish state” and the “disastrous reality of holding millions of Palestinians under military occupation.”
“Tell the UC Regents: anti-Zionism is not racism, it’s a political belief,” Zimmerman retweeted from the Twitter account of the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace in March, reacting to the University of California Board of Regents’ adoption of a report that condemned both anti-Semitism and forms of anti-Zionism that are anti-Semitic.
Zimmerman cursed Israel’s prime minister in a Facebook post last year, virtually accusing him of war crimes, The Washington Free Beacon reported on Wednesday.
“Bibi Netanyahu is an arrogant, deceptive, cynical, manipulative a–hole,” Simone Zimmerman, who is Jewish, wrote on March 3, 2015. “F–k you, Bibi … you sanctioned the murder of over 2,000 people this summer.”
A former activist for the far-Left Jewish lobbying group J Street, Zimmerman also accused Netanyahu of “consistent fear mongering [and] for pushing Israel, in word and deed, farther and farther away from the international community.” She added that “a brutal military occupation of millions more continues under your watch.”
Zimmerman later edited the post by switching “a–hole” to “politician” and “F–k you” to “shame on you,” according to the Washington Free Beacon,which obtained screenshots of the original and edited posts.
Zimmerman joins Sanders’ campaign after heading the campus chapter of J Street at Berkeley College, when she was an undergraduate. In 2012, while studying at Berkeley, she signed a letter criticizing the University of California for issuing a report on antisemitism on UC campuses. In 2013, Zimmerman wrote an op-ed calling on Hillel International to sponsor campus events promoting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Zimmerman has also been involved with IfNotNow, an emerging movement of young American Jews who oppose Israeli control in the disputed territories. In a February op-ed for the Israeli daily Haaretz, Zimmerman talked about her views on Israel and included what she believes to be “grave injustices committed by the Jewish state” and the “disastrous reality of holding millions of Palestinians under military occupation.”
The decision to hire Zimmerman comes after Sanders recently inflated the number of Palestinian civilian deaths in the 2014 Israel-Hamas war at least sevenfold—to 10,000—in an interview with the New York Daily News.
By: JNS.org/ The Algemeiner
