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With the conclusion of another amazing AIPAC Policy Conference, and as an evangelical Christian advocating for a stronger American-Israeli relationship, the question has occasionally been asked “What is the real reason Christians support Israel? Aren’t you just secretly trying to Trojan Horse and convert the Jews?” Often following that comes the question “Aren’t Christians just trying to speed up the end times by supporting Israel?” Both statements are not based in reality but rather on rumors. Frankly speaking, there is no secret Christian agenda. The Bible clearly states the agenda of every Christian and it is a public agenda, never...

Senator Bernie Sanders’ accusation of bigotry, aimed at the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, is ironic given that AIPAC is a bi-partisan group that supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, something that Bernie says he also supports.  Bernie also wants “an independent, democratic, economically viable” Palestinian state, the same objectives outlined in detail in President Donald Trump’s recent peace plan -- yet Bernie has publicly rejected that, too.  Something smells about Bernie’s ongoing declaration that he is both “pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian.” He has digressed to the same modus operandi favored by the Palestinians -- hurling racist accusations, refusing...

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee late Sunday called out Sen. Bernie Sanders over his decision to skip its conference next month in Washington and blaming his decision on his concern that the group provides a platform for leaders to "express bigotry" and oppose basic Palestinian rights. Sanders, who is on the heels of an emphatic win in the Nevada Caucuses, took to Twitter on Sunday to voice his concern about the influential lobby. The Vermont senator vowed that if elected president he would work with both Israelis and Palestinians to bring peace and stability to the region. AIPAC wasted...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) blasted the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Sunday in a statement confirming that he would not attend the pro-Israel organization's annual conference. Sanders tweeted that he would not attend the conference due to AIPAC's connection to "leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights," an apparent reference to the current administration of Israel headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Sanders has repeatedly criticized in the past. "The Israeli people have the right to live in peace and security. So do the Palestinian people. I remain concerned about the platform AIPAC provides for leaders who...

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) fired back at Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday night after he said he would not attend the organization's annual conference and accused it of providing a platform to leaders who “express bigotry and oppose Palestinian rights." In a statement AIPAC posted to Twitter, the pro-Israel group said Sanders “has never attended our conference and that is evident from his outrageous comment.” “In fact, many of his own Senate and House Democratic colleagues and leaders speak from our platform to the over 18,000 Americans from widely diverse backgrounds – Democrats, Republicans, Jews, Christians,...

The votes being counted in Ireland today. Yesterday's projection as polls closed put the left-wing Sinn Fein Party in the top three of Irish political parties with its best showing yet in a southern Irish election. Early declared results show Sinn Fein a clear winner.... In Switzerland a law against "homophobia" projected to have won in a referendum..... More unusual activity related to Iowa's Democrat caucus last Monday. The Iowa Democratic Party today awarded the popular vote winner Bernie Sanders only 12 delegates to the national convention while the candidate who ran in second place, Pete Buttigieg, was given 14...

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Bernie Sanders launched a campaign video highlighting his Jewish identity and casting President Donald Trump as part of the white nationalist threat. The four-minute video posted Thursday night on Sanders’ Twitter feed, interpolates excerpts from Sanders’ speech last year to J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group, with commentary by Joel Rubin, the campaign’s Jewish outreach director. It starts with Sanders’ declaration of pride in being Jewish. “I’m very proud to be Jewish and look forward to becoming the first Jewish president in the history of this country,” Sanders says. During his 2016 run for...

Retired US Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson is no stranger to controversy, with a legacy of questionable statements on Israel and the US government. In 2013 the former chief of staff for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested that Israel was responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Syria. In 2007 Wilkerson appeared in a Dutch documentary, claiming that American foreign policy was dominated by “the Jewish lobby”. Despite his history of inflammatory rhetoric and frequent conspiracy theories, Wilkerson was tapped to serve as a military and foreign policy adviser for the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2015. In the wake...

One of our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests has just uncovered more anti-Israel rhetoric from the Obama Administration, specifically Clinton’s inner circle. This time it’s coming from one of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s top aides – one with questionable ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Through our FOIA lawsuit, originally filed against the Obama State Department, the ACLJ has just obtained an email from Huma Abedin, the former Deputy Chief of Staff under Hillary Clinton at the State Department, in which she was told that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was very interested in having former...

Former MK Michael Oren: Delegation is part of Democrats fight for the "soul of the party.” The 41 US House Democrats who arrived in Israel on Monday on a trip sponsored by an AIPAC affiliated charity are doing more than “just” showing mainstream Democratic support for Israel, they are wresting control of the party from the high-profile Progressive wing trying to hijack it. A part of this wing – embodied by congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandira Ocasio-Cortez – despises Israel and AIPAC with a venom that sometimes crosses the line into antisemitism. And two organizations identified with this...

The United States Army was the villain in the “Black Hawk Down” incident in Somalia, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., wrote in a 2017 Twitter post. Omar, a Somali native elected to Congress last fall, was responding to a tweet that falsely described the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu as the worst terrorist attack in Somali history. The original tweet noted that 19 American soldiers were killed and 73 American soldiers were wounded. “In his selective memory, [the writer] forgets to also mention the thousands of Somalis killed by the American forces that day! #NotTodaySatan,” Omar wrote while still a Minnesota...

As the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual conference opens this week in Washington, the group finds itself caught squarely amid the quadruple crosshairs of a deeply divided Israel and the fractured state of U.S. politics. AIPAC's president, Howard Kohr, who is by both temperament and avocation a centrist consensus builder with a strictly bipartisan U.S. mandate, is attempting to thread the needle in a way that will test his prodigious powers of persuasion and almost uncanny political instincts. But thread the needle he must, because the threads of the complex tapestry that forms the U.S.-Israel bond need mending. The...

The Palestinian leader spoke in advance of the anticipated roll out of what US President Donald Trump is calling the “Plan of the Century” to resolve the Israeli-Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Trump Administration will allow Israel to annex portions of the West Bank and split the Gaza Strip from the West Bank so that it can be a state of its own, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday. Speaking at the Arab League summit in Tunisia, "What is coming from the US is more dangerous and serious,” he said. “The US will tell Israel, annex part of the Palestinian...

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) faced ire from the left wing of her party on Monday after meeting with representatives from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Harris posted a photo of herself with the pro-Israel group's members at her Washington, D.C., Senate office on Monday, sparking criticism from left-leaning critics who argue that the organization, and support for Israel generally, should be challenged due to the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government. Harris was one of the 2020 Democratic Party contenders who skipped attending AIPAC's annual convention, prompting some to argue that she had reversed her decision. "Great...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuked Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Tuesday for her recent comments about the motivation of American allies of Israel, arguing that her remarks do more than just attack Israel — they target the Jewish people. Netanyahu, speaking by video from Israel on the final day of the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference, did not use Omar’s name, but he singled her out by referring to a comment she made on Twitter last month. “From this Benjamin: It’s not about the Benjamins,” Netanyahu said, responding to a February tweet by Omar purporting that...

A Virginia public school district has given a student art award to a drawing portraying a hook-nosed Jewish person carrying a money bag and entitled "Jewish People." The drawing was made as part of a student art class and won an award from Fairfax County Schools. It was on display at the Northern Virginia Community College’s Ernst Community Cultural Center, and celebrated at an awards ceremony. The drawing portrays a hooked-nose man holding a money bag. The caption reads, "No Jew in the World Understands the Importance of Money." When a school official was confronted by a concerned member of...

No other group is ever accused of having too much power and influence. That false claim – dating back to times and places where Jews had little or no influence – is an anti-Semitic trope that tells us more about the anti-Semites who invoke it that it does about the Jews. History has proven that Jews need more power and influence than other groups to secure their safety. During the 1930s and early 1940s Jews had morality on their side, but they lacked the power and influence to save six million of their brothers and sisters from systematic murder.[snip]When Jewish...

Not long ago, if a U.S. presidential hopeful from either party was mounting a serious bid for the Oval Office, the candidate would seek a spot on the main stage at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference, the largest U.S. gathering of the pro-Israel lobby. This year, it seems, not so much. While the 2019 speakers list was stacked with officials from President Donald Trump's administration and Republican Party grandees, most major Democratic presidential candidates for 2020 were missing from the conference altogether.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, Tuesday looked to distance the Democratic party from any suggestion it was anti-Semitic after freshman lawmaker Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., publicly criticized Israel and its leadership. Addressing the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington, Pelosi stressed that Democrats remain “relentlessly bipartisan” in support of Israel and that no one should be allowed to make it “a wedge issue,” World Israel News reported. “From Israel’s founding through the present day, our pledge remains the same: Israel and America are connected, now and forever," she said. "We will never allow anyone to...

“America’s Rabbi” Shmuley Boteach pointed the finger at U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and accused her of blatant anti-Semitism in a public, full-page ad printed in Sunday’s Washington Post just in time for this week’s 2019 American-Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference in Washington DC. Boteach placed Omar’s own anti-Semitic words alongside some of the most anti-Semitic tropes of all time together with a full-length photo of the freshman Congresswoman. He brought along a copy of the attack ad to the AIPAC conference, waving it at anti-AIPAC demonstrators at the Washington Convention Center as they chanted “Shame on you!” at...