On Monday, Bernie Sanders did something his campaign has been toying with for months: He gave a speech laying out his vision for Middle East peace. With the other four remaining major party candidates traveling to Washington, DC, to speak at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference, Sanders opted to stay in Utah, where he is banking on a strong showing in Tuesday's Democratic caucus. Prior to addressing a packed Salt Lake City gymnasium, he spoke to a smaller crowd, offering the speech his people say he would have delivered at AIPAC.
Consistent with his ongoing critique of economic inequality, Sanders, who is Jewish and spent time at a kibbutz after college, offered a plea for a more humane handling of the Israel–Palestine conflict. "To be successful, we have to be a friend not only to Israel, but to the Palestinian people, where in Gaza, they suffer from an unemployment rate of 44 percent—the highest in the world—and a poverty rate nearly equal to that," Sanders said, according to a prepared text of his remarks.
Israel, he argued, is compounding the suffering with its own aggressive policies. Sanders called on Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to pull back settlements in the West Bank and turn over hundreds of millions of shekels in tax revenue to Palestinians. Peace, he also said, "will mean a sustainable and equitable distribution of precious water resources so that Israel and Palestine can both thrive as neighbors…Right now, Israel controls 80 percent of the water reserves in the West Bank. Inadequate water supply has contributed to the degradation and desertification of Palestinian land. A lasting a peace will have to recognize Palestinians are entitled to control their own lives, and there is nothing human life needs more than water."
As he moved on to a rehashing of his positions on ISIS and the Iran nuclear deal, Sanders hit on familiar themes, framing the failure of Middle Eastern nations to stop ISIS, in part, as a failure of wealthy elites. If Qatar could spend $200 billion on World Cup soccer stadiums, he said, it could surely spend as much fighting terrorists. Singling out Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, both of which have benefited from America's defense budget, Sanders added that, "wealthy and powerful nations in the region can no longer expect the United States to do their work for them."