“The Democrats have very much proven to be anti-Israel, there’s no question about that, and it’s a disgrace,“ Trump said. ”I mean, I don’t know what’s happened to them but they are totally anti-Israel. Frankly, I think they’re anti-Jewish.”
His remarks come after the progressive advocacy group MoveOn urged presidential candidates to boycott the conference, which is being headlined by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
MoveOn said in a Twitter post dated March 20 it is promoting the boycott because AIPAC, which stands for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, lobbied for the United States to withdraw from an Iran Deal, peddled “anti-Muslim and anti-Arab rhetoric,” and refused to condemn the “anti-Semitism of Republicans.”
It cited a poll of its members in which more than 74 percent agreed any progressive candidate running for the U.S. presidency should skip the conference.
Presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas), South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) have all indicated they do not plan to attend.
The office of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) did not respond to emailed questions on whether she planned to attend.
Democrat congressional leaders Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) are planning to speak at the conference, as is the congressional leadership on the Republican side, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Trump, whose son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump are Jewish, is not scheduled to attend the conference. Instead, Vice President Mike Pence (R) will speak, as well as a number of other administration officials.
Trump on March 21 said it was time to back Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights that Israel seized from Syria in 1967, noting it is “of critical strategic and security importance to the state of Israel and regional stability.”
