For the past few weeks, we’ve been asking Senator Kamala Harris to not attend AIPAC. So far she hasn’t responded. So now, with Sen. Warren’s announcement and Sen. Sanders’ long-standing support for Palestinian rights — Sanders skipped AIPAC during the 2016 election — we are posing an important question to all the Democrats throwing their hat in the ring for 2020: Which side are you on?
AIPAC’s headliner, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, recently formed an alliance with an Israeli political party so extreme they are referred to as the Jewish KKK. Last month he made the openly racist statement, “Israel is not a state of all its citizens. It’s the nation-state of the Jewish people — and them alone.” Also speaking at this year’s conference will be Oded Revivi, Mayor of the illegal settlement of Efrat. It will be the first time ever for AIPAC to host a representative of the settlement movement.
2020 election candidates who attend the AIPAC conference will be providing legitimacy to Israeli settlements — which are entirely illegal under international law — Netanyahu’s grotesquely racist speech and behavior, and Israel’s long-standing policies of ethno-nationalism, occupation, and apartheid. Send a message now to 2020 candidates asking them to skip AIPAC.
Last year when Senator Harris attended AIPAC she told an audience of thousands that the history of the US Civil Rights movement is what inspired her to support a strong U.S.-Israel alliance. Now that she is running for president, we hope her position has changed and that she and all 2020 candidates will make clear that they are on the side of Palestinian human rights by skipping AIPAC.
AIPAC has made crystal clear which side they are on — violence and racism — and Senator Warren has just shown she doesn’t share those values. Join us in asking the rest of the 2020 candidates to do the same.
