Liberal Group Calls On 2020 Democrats To Boycott AIPAC Conference
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the AIPAC Conference Image by Getty Images
A liberal organization is asking Democratic presidential candidates not to attend this year’s AIPAC policy conference, Politico reported.
MoveOn, a progressive public policy advocacy group and political action committee, said that AIPAC is too close to the Israeli government, run by Benjamin Netanyahu, and has a history of Islamophobia.
“It’s no secret that that AIPAC has worked to hinder diplomatic efforts like the Iran deal, is undermining Palestinian self-determination, and inviting figures actively involved in human rights violations to its stage,” Iram Ali, campaign director at MoveOn Political Action, wrote in a statement to Politico.
It’s unknown if any candidates are planning to attend the annual conference, which is on Sunday.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is a bipartisan lobbying group and one of the largest pro-Israel groups in Washington. It doesn’t donate money to candidates or have a political action committee.
Last month, Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota accused AIPAC of bribing politicians to support Israel, a comment that was called anti-Semitic.
MoveOn called for the boycott after most of its members approved of it in an online survey. Prior to the survey was comments noting AIPAC’s “anti-Muslim and anti-Arab rhetoric while giving platforms to Islamophobes.”
Alyssa Fisher is a writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
