President Donald Trump said Friday as he left for Florida that Democrats skipping a prominent pro-Israel, policy conference are ‘anti-Israel’ and their conduct is disgraceful.
He told DailyMail.com on the South Lawn of the White House: ‘The Democrats have very much proven to be anti-Israel. There’s no question about that. And it’s a disgrace.
Trump said they are also ‘anti-Jewish,’ as far as he’s concerned. ‘I don’t know what happened to them. Frankly, I think they’re anti-Jewish.’
Leading Democratic presidential candidates from Kamala Harris to Elizabeth Warren and Beto O’Rourke have said they won’t go.
An aide to Bernie Sanders says he’s not attending the Washington, D.C, conference, either, out of concern the lobbying group is providing a platform ‘for leaders who have expressed bigotry and oppose a two-state solution.’ The Vermont senator is Jewish.
Trump last spoke to AIPAC in 2016 when he was running for office. Members of his Cabinet have represented him since, and he did not say Friday why he’s not making appearance at the event next week.
President Donald Trump said Friday as he left for Florida that Democrats skipping a prominent pro-Israel, policy conference are ‘anti-Israel’ and their conduct is disgraceful
He’ll host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who attends AIPAC almost annually, at the White House on Monday and Tuesday for meetings followed by a dinner.
Trump meanwhile signaled this week that the U.S. will officially recognize the contested Golan Heights region as a part of Israel.
Israel will see such a development as rivaling the significance of last year’s opening of a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem — a unilateral White House action that now has city authorities planning to name a new subway station after the American president.
Trump said in an interview with the Fox Business Network that broadcast on Friday morning that he had ‘been thinking about doing it for a long time.’
Host Maria Bartiromo asked the president if the move was linked to April 9 election the embattled Netanyahu is competing in.
‘No. I wouldn’t even know about that,’ Trump responded. ‘I hear he’s doing okay. But I would imagine the other side, whoever’s against him, is also in favor of what I just did.’
The president’s timing, however, coincides with a political crisis for Netanyahu, who almost certainly will face a corruption indictment from his country’s attorney general.
Trump insisted the action is unrelated. ‘Every president has said, “Do that.” I’m the one that gets it done.’
In a tweet, the president had declared: ‘After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!’
Netanyahu shared his gratitude on Thursday afternoon, writing: ‘At a time when Iran seeks to use Syria as a platform to destroy Israel, President Trump boldly recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Thank you President Trump!’
The Israeli prime minister’s lightning rod status had some Democrats swearing off AIPAC in advance of his speech.
‘I know that in Prime Minister Netanyahu, we have someone who is openly sided with racists in that country, someone who’s warned about Arabs coming to the polls, someone who seeks to exploit division and fear and hatred,’ O’Rourke said this week. ‘That’s not somebody who is negotiating in good faith. We are about to lose the last, best chance for a two-state solution.’
President Donald Trump signaled on Thursday that the U.S. will soon officially recognize the contested Golan Heights region as a part of Israel
‘After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights,’ the president tweeted
The Golan Heights are 690 square miles straddling between Israel and Syria; Israel won the territory and others from Syria in 1967 during the Six-Day War
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (center) joined Netanyahu (right) and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman (not pictured) in prayers at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City on Thursday
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted back at Trump, saying Trump’s move came ‘at a time when Iran seeks to use Syria as a platform to destroy Israel
Fort Wayne, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former HUS Secretary Julian Castro, California’s Harris, Massachusetts’s Warren, Texas’ O’Rourke and Sanders are all sidestepping the thorny Israel issue after freshman Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar earned a reputation as an anti-Semite for complaining that moneyed Jews control much of Washington.
Liberal advocacy groups MoveOn.org and J-Street put pressure this week on the 2020 field to boycott the conference that begins in Washington on Sunday — and no presidential contender has agreed to speak.
Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, including Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, are attending, however.
MoveOn cited AIPAC’s work to undo the Iran nuclear deal as a reason to disassociate from the lobbying group. It accused AIPAC of ‘undermining Palestinian self-determination, and inviting figures actively involved in human rights violations to its stage,’ as well.
‘We asked our members what they think so that we can make more informed decisions — and over 74% agreed that progressive presidential candidates should skip the AIPAC conference,’ the organization claimed. ‘This should also give a clear insight to 2020 candidates on where their base stands instead of prioritizing lobbying groups and policy people who rarely step outside of D.C.’
J-Street promotes itself as a pro-Israel alternative to AIPAC. It accused Netanyahu of ‘waging a desperate, overtly racist campaign to win reelection and escape prosecution for his alleged crimes’ in an email to supporters this week.
‘Speaking at AIPAC this year means sharing a stage with Prime Minister Netanyahu. If 2020 candidates choose to do so, they need to make it absolutely clear that they do not share his values or approve of his policies,’ the organization demanded.
The president insisted he knows ‘nothing’ about how his announcement might help Netanyahu solidify his political position in advance of an April 9 election; Netanyahu faces the possibility of a corruption indictment between now and then
Pompeo’s (center) frequent appearance in Israel is a sign of Trump’s closeness with Netanyahu (left) and the value Israelis place on the certainty of their U.S. alliance
The plea claimed that Trump and Netanyahu had leveled ‘remarkably similar attacks against immigrants, minorities, democratic institutions and those investigating their potential crimes’ and accused them of ‘spouting the same hate and enabling the same dark forces.’
Trump said after the Omar controversy that Democrats’ failure to condemn the Muslim congresswoman directly for comments that were panned as anti-Semitic that they had established themselves as anti-Israel political party.
They passed a resolution denouncing hate speech in a broad sense but refused to name her in the resolution Democratic leaders introduced after she claimed fervent support for Israel is ‘all about the Benjamins baby’ when it comes to politicians.
Peolsi said the since-deleted tweet relied on ‘anti-Semitic tropes’ yet offered a defense of the Minnesota Democrat as having come from a different background.
Hours before the president railed against Democrats at the White House for actions he said are ‘anti-Israel,’ his secretary of state said in an interview from Israel that it is ‘possible’ that Donald Trump was ‘raised’ by God to save the Jewish people from Iran.
‘I am confident that the Lord is at work here,’ Pompeo told the Christian Broadcasting Network.
During a lengthy discussion at the David Citadel Hotel overlooking Jerusalem’s Old City, the network asked Pompeo was asked about the Jewish holiday of Purim, which fell on the day CBN conducted the interview.
The biblical story tells of how Queen Esther saved the Jewish people from being wiped out.
Interviewer Chris Mitchell asked Pompeo, the nation’s top diplomat, whether Trump was here to ‘save the Jewish people,’ using the story about Esther as a parallel.
‘Jews worldwide and here in Jerusalem are talking about the fact that Esther 2,500 years ago saved the Jewish people with God’s help from Haman,’ Mitchell said. ‘And now 2,500 years later there’s a new Haman here in the Middle East that wants to eradicate the Jewish people like just like Haman did: the state of Iran.’
He asked, ‘Could it be that President Trump right now has been sort of raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace?’
The U.S. secretary of state said he believes it’s ‘possible’ then changed the topic to his tour of archeological sites dating back 3,000 years.
‘To see the remarkable history of the faith in this place and the work that our administration’s done to make sure that this democracy in the Middle East, that this Jewish state remains. I am confident that the Lord is at work here,’ Pompeo said, in a video clip put out by CBN.
‘It was special for me as a Christian. It was special I think to show the commitment the United States has to this democracy, this Jewish nation of Israel,’ Pompeo added.
Netanyahu, Pompeo and Friedman finished their Old City Jerusalem tour on Thursday with a visit to the Western Wall Tunnels
CBN taped the interview with Pompeo on the same day that President Trump said the U.S. should recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel. In a new report, the U.S. called the ‘Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.’
A spokesman for Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called that decision ‘a continuation of the hostile approach of the American administration toward our Palestinian people.’
The spokesman said the shift is part of Trump’s plan to ‘liquidate’ the Palestinians’ cause.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 during the Six-Day War. The area’s 690 square miles today are a buffer zone between the two nations.
The United Nations weeks later called on Israel to withdraw from the territory, and from the West Bank and Gaza in a resolution that also declared that Israel had the same right as Arab states ‘to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.’
Israel instead enacted a law that effectively annexed the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights in 1981 following years of squabbling over the resolution.
The UN Security Council then passed a resolution declaring ‘that the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect.’
Netanyahu suggested Thursday in Jerusalem that he’s eager to see Trump make a unilateral move akin to his decision in December 2017 to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital, and his later move of America’s embassy there from Tel Aviv.