Jewish Insider: The boycott that wasn’t: 2020 Democrats and AIPAC
By Laura Kelly and Jacob Kornbluh
Insider view — Halie Soifer, Executive Director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA), told Jewish Insider: “The idea that the candidates boycotted the conference is absolutely false. Similar to what the president tweets about Jewish voters, it is an assault on decency and truth. We know that AIPAC will invite the nominees from each party in the election, just as they did in 2016, just as they did in 2008. It’s difficult, as you can imagine, for AIPAC to accommodate at this point the nearly 20 rumored and official Democratic contenders for 2020.”
“And so for those who are members of Congress, they’re engaging with their constituents, they’re involved in this conference behind the scenes. But they’re not addressing the whole forum from the floor and that is okay, it’s not a boycott. I worked for Senator Kamala Harris, for the past two years, she addressed AIPAC in 2017, she addressed AIPAC in 2018. She’s engaged this year. She happens to be running for president. if she happens to be the nominee, she’s likely be here next year just as any other Democrat who would be the nominee would be here next year.”