More than half of the declared Democratic presidential candidates have decided they will not be present at next week's annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington, D.C. Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Jay Inslee, Julian Castro and Kirsten Gillibrand have all indicated they will not be in attendance (while John Delaney is declining to attend due to a scheduling conflict). Other Democratic presidential hopefuls such as Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker have not made any commitment one way or the other.
Sanders' decision not to attend comes as no surprise as he did not speak to the group during the 2016 campaign and was the only presidential candidate that year who was absent from the proceedings. The Vermont Senator, of course, has long been a critic of Israel. Nevertheless, as the only Jewish candidate in the race, it is a shame that he feels no affinity towards Israel given that much of the early Zionist movement was rooted in socialism.
Warren's decision to skip AIPAC all that surprising either. After all, she boycotted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 2015 speech to a joint session of Congress and earlier this month publicly criticized Netanyahu after he was indicted on bribery and corruption charges. Ditto for O'Rourke who has been spending his time in New Hampshire bashing Netanyahu for "openly siding with racists." Netanyahu, who faces re-election next month, will be speaking at AIPAC.
However, Harris' decision to not to attend AIPAC is a disappointment. When Harris addressed AIPAC in 2017, she began her remarks by telling the audience her affinity for Israel went back to her childhood. "So having grown up in the Bay Area," said Harris, "I fondly remember those Jewish national fund boxes that we would use to collect donations to plant trees for Israel." It would seem these memories aren't so fond now.
Equally disappointing is Pete Buttigieg. Although he has not previously addressed AIPAC, the Mayor of South Bend visited Israel last year under the auspices of the American Jewish Committee's Project Interchange program. In an interview with AJC, Buttigieg said, “There’s a risk that support for Israel could come to be regarded as a partisan issue and I think that would be really unfortunate. One of the first things you realize when you get on the ground is that this is not a left vs. right issue — at least it shouldn’t be." However, in a recent interview with Esquire, Buttigieg was asked if there was a major national issue he had "completely changed his mind about." If you guessed Israel then unfortunately you would be right. Buttigieg questioned the compatibility of Israel being both a Jewish and a democratic state lamenting, "(N)o one can explain how you can have a democracy and a Jewish state at the same time unless there's a two-state solution. And some of these other things that just cannot continue the way they're going."
The presidential hopefuls have been urged to boycott the event by left-wing organizations such as Code Pink and MoveOn.org. Code Pink describes the AIPAC Conference as "a celebration of the most repressive elements of the Israeli state." Not to be outdone, MoveOn claims (without providing any supporting evidence), "AIPAC has … been known to peddle anti-Muslim and anti-Arab rhetoric while giving platforms to Islamophobes."
It is well worth noting that Code Pink supports the international BDS (Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions) campaign against Israel. Although MoveOn hasn't taken an official position on BDS, it does have a pro-BDS petition on its website which states, "Help Israel join the citizenry of the world; until she obeys International Law and stops her crimes against humanity we will join the BDS movement of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel." If Code Pink & MoveOn can convince Democratic presidential hopefuls to boycott AIPAC then who can say they won't support BDS tomorrow?
Whatever the influence Code Pink and MoveOn have had on Democratic presidential aspirants, one cannot underestimate the role played by freshman Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar in these developments. In the space of a month, Omar went from apologizing for claiming AIPAC financially influences politicians to support Israel to half the Democratic presidential field refusing to attend an AIPAC event. The key turning point during this last month was when Democrats rallied to Omar after she questioned the loyalty of American Jews. This turning point was sparked by Omar's fellow freshman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Once AOC said jump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said how high and watered down the anti-Semitism resolution. Meanwhile, several Democratic presidential candidates followed suit with both Warren and Harris incredulously claiming that criticism of Omar put her at risk of violence. Even Gillibrand, one of the only Democratic presidential hopefuls who criticized Omar by name, is steering clear of AIPAC. The Corbynization of the Democratic Party is well underway and somewhere Ilhan Omar is smiling.
While there might not be a Jexodus from the Democratic Party in the immediate future, by boycotting AIPAC and excusing anti-Semitic conduct by its elected officials, Democrats are ceding a bipartisan concern to the Republicans, especially President Trump. As odious as Trump's behavior has been since the day he descended the escalator at Trump Tower to his present obsession with the late Senator John McCain, the President has consistently defended and praised Israel while Democrats ostracize the Jewish state. Trump won't get the majority of the Jewish vote in 2020, but his words and actions won't go unnoticed either especially if Democrats go full Corbyn and begin to harass their Jewish members and drive them out of the party as has been done with Britain's Labour Party. And yes, President Trump will be speaking at AIPAC. Where will the rest of the Democratic presidential field be?
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