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Michael Rapaport unleashed a scathing critique of Senator Bernie Sanders, condemning the Jewish politician’s stance against providing arms to Israel during its ongoing conflict with Hamas. The actor suggested that Sanders’ Holocaust-victim ancestors would be horrified by his position.

The controversy ignited when Sanders posted on social media platform X/Twitter, characterizing Israel’s military response as “ethnic cleansing” following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terror assault. During that attack, Hamas militants took numerous Israeli hostages and conducted a brutal campaign of violence against civilians, including children and women.

Sanders wrote: “Netanyahu’s illegal war has killed 50,000 Palestinians. Now, Trump wants to force out 2 million more to build a billionaire’s playground in Gaza. That is ethnic cleansing — and it’s a war crime. Next week, I will force votes to block $8.8 billion in new arms sales to Israel.”

Rapaport swiftly responded with fierce criticism, questioning why a career politician would advocate against arming Israel during a time of multiple security threats. In his social media response, he stated: “While we are under threat on 7 fronts, why would a lifelong politician be calling for a stop to arms to ISRAEL? @SenSanders, your parents and grandparents would be disgusted with you. You’re a self-hating embarrassment.”

The actor expanded his criticism to include Senator Chuck Schumer, another Jewish politician, before delivering an even more personal attack on Sanders. Rapaport referenced the tragic fate of Sanders’ family during the Holocaust, expressing disbelief that someone with such a personal connection to Jewish persecution would oppose military support for Israel.

According to Tablet magazine’s 2015 report: “[Bernie] and his brother Larry grew up in a modest apartment located off Kings Highway. Like many Brooklyn families, the Sanderses aspired to become middle-class Americans while living in the shadow of the Holocaust. In 1921, Larry and Bernie’s father, Eli, left his family in Slopnice, a rural village in the South of Poland, and immigrated to the United States. During the Nazi occupation of Poland, Slopnice’s wide-open fields were used for airdrops before the businesses and goods of the town’s local Jews were closed and confiscated. Most of Eli’s family was sent to concentration camps where they were killed.”

Rapaport, who shares Jewish heritage and Polish ancestry, has undergone his own political transformation. Once an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, he has since shifted his stance following the October 7 attacks, openly acknowledging his previous misjudgment of Trump and expressing support for his recent policies.