Former Bernie Sanders official accuses senator of pushing most antisemitic candidates 'in a generation'

Former campaign official for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Joel Rubin called out the Vermont senator last week for pushing the "most categorically anti-Israel, antisemitic candidates" he's seen in recent years.

"I think what Sanders and the Sanders operation have done is shove into our system the most categorically anti-Israel, antisemitic candidates that we’ve seen in a generation — if ever, certainly within the Democratic Party — and it’s by design," Rubin said in an interview with Jewish Insider. 

"The goal is to undermine Democratic unity and even rationality on Israel at this stage," Rubin said.

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Rubin, who was also a former State Department official under former President Barack Obama, previously led Jewish outreach for Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign. However, following Sanders' past support for former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who sported a tattoo resembling a Nazi "totenkopf," a skull-and-crossbones design, Rubin has since concluded that his former boss is now intentionally pushing antisemitism.

Rubin went as far as to refer to Sanders as an "outright hostile actor" pushing a "hate-based narrative" surrounding Israel along with several rising Democratic politicians.

"I’m extremely disappointed. I feel like it violates the goals of promoting peace in the Middle East and the two-state solution, and I believe that it exacerbates the pain and distress that the American Jewish community is experiencing right now in Israel policy," Rubin said. "I had higher hopes for a senator who is Jewish, and his team who knows very well what’s out there."

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He warned that these efforts would leave Democrats vulnerable in elections against the Republican Party, particularly as support for Israel appears to be a new breaking point for progressive candidates.

"I don’t know what’s going on inside that operation. There is no line. There is no bottom. There is no low," Rubin said. "And what it’s doing now is gutting American Jewish confidence in the Democratic Party, which is not a way to win elections, and it’s unethical as well, considering American Jews have been a bedrock community supporting the Democratic Party."

"We need leadership, and the progressive community needs to stop scapegoating Jews for all problems in the world," he added.

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Fox News Digital reached out to Sanders' office for comment but did not immediately hear back.

Along with Platner, Sanders has campaigned for and endorsed Melat Kiros in Colorado and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, who have both criticized Israel for committing an alleged "genocide" during its war in Gaza.

Sanders was also one of several Democratic members of Congress who have supported efforts to cut $3 billion in aid to Israel.