Sanders Not To Attend Pro-Israel Conference


Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will not be attending the AIPAC conference next week.

Sanders will be the only presidential candidate this year to not attend the conference. The AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) conference is a yearly rally of politicians and notable Jewish figures. Notably, Sanders is the first Jewish politician to win any state’s primary election.

Sanders penned a letter to AIPAC president Robert Cohen regarding the conference, including his dedication to the situation in Israel:

“…Issues impacting Israel and the Middle East are of the utmost importance to me, to our country, and to the world.”

He said that campaign-related traveling would deny him the ability to attend the conference. However, he said he would send messages to conference organizers in case they would be willing to distribute them to conference-goers. AIPAC normally prohibits candidates from remotely speaking.

AIPAC traditionally invites all presidential candidates to attend. Among those in attendance are Democratic Party front-runner Hillary Clinton and Republican Party front-runner Donald Trump. The appearance of Trump at AIPAC has certain attendees up-in-arms as they plan to organize a boycott of the speech.

The prospect of Sanders attending AIPAC has itself garnered controversy. Max Blumenthal, son of former Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal, started a petition requesting that Sanders not attend. Among the 5,000 signatures is that of Roger Walters, founder and lead singer of Pink Floyd and avid Sanders-supporter.

Conversely, Robert Naiman, a writer on foreign policy, wrote a letter to Sanders requesting that he does attend. He asked Sanders to act as a “truth-teller” against AIPAC’s stringent pro-Israel stance.

AIPAC’s goal is to encourage Americans to support a solid relationship between the United States and Israel. To this end, it regularly invites politicians to speak. Politicians across party lines consider AIPAC a prime opportunity for winning over voters.

 

Featured image by AFGE, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.