Elizabeth Warren Says Won’t Attend AIPAC Annual Conference in Washington

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren indicated she would skip the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC’s conference next month’s and did not push back against questionable assertions about the lobby from a questioner at a campaign event in New Hampshire.

In a sign of how the lobby has become a political lightning rod for Democrats, Warren answered “yeah” when asked if she was planning to skip the conference in Washington in March.

“I’m an American Jew and I’m terrified by the unholy alliance that AIPAC is forming with Islamapohobes and anti-Semites and white nationalists and no Democrat should legitimize that kind of bigotry by attending their annual policy conference,” a woman attending a town hall with Warren in Derry, New Hampshire said Thursday. “And I’m really grateful that you skipped the AIPAC conference last year and so my question is if you’ll join me in committing to skip the AIPAC conference this March.”

The Jewish anti-occupation group IfNotNow said that the questioner, identified as Sarah O’Connor, was acting on its behalf.

skip
– tweet

Tonight, Elizabeth Warren nodded along and smiled as a questioner slandered AIPAC as "an unholy alliance" of "Islamophobes," "anti-semites, and white nationalists" that perpetuates "bigotry"

Without blinking, Warren then agreed to boycott next year's AIPAC conference pic.twitter.com/U2MJ6DCTdZ

— Zach Parkinson (@AZachParkinson) February 7, 2020

A spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee would not comment.

In a joint statement released Friday with three other progressive groups — Indivisible, MoveOn, and the Working Families Party — IfNotNow echoed the language O’Connor used with Warren and said it was launching a campaign, #SkipAIPAC, to pressure other candidates not to attend the conference.

“Israel’s decades-long occupation has eroded the bipartisan consensus on Israel and AIPAC, in a last-ditch effort to maintain influence, now anchors an unholy alliance with anti-Semites, Islamophobes and white nationalists,” IfNotNow co-founder Emily Mayer said. “This unholy alliance shields the Israeli government from any consequences for its actions and pushes for a blank check that has had disastrous effects for both Palestinians and Israelis. No Democrat should give AIPAC political cover with their presence.”