Photo: Bernie Sanders

(JNS)

In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) responded to the growing calls globally from left-wing groups and Arab nations for the Jewish state to stop its efforts to defeat Hamas.

“Well, I don’t know how you can have a ceasefire … with an organization like Hamas, which is dedicated to turmoil and chaos and destroying the State of Israel,” said the legislator. “And I think what the Arab countries in the region understand is that Hamas has got to go.”

In the same breath, he issued a plea to “end the bombing,” calling it an “immediate task,” and to go forward with a two-state solution.

“Israel has a right to defend itself,” he said. “But what Israel does not in my view have a right to do is to kill thousands and thousands of innocent men, women and children who had nothing to do with that attack.”