Michael Bloomberg criticized his competitor Bernie Sanders for skipping the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual policy conference and his anti-Israel stance, calling him “dead wrong.”
Bloomberg, who is Jewish, has become increasingly critical of Sanders, who is also Jewish, but has been against Israel’s policies on Palestine.
Sanders has called Israel’s conservative leader Benjamin Netanyahu a racist and dubbed AIPAC a platform “for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights.”
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 express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights. For that reason I will not attend their conference. 1/2
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 23, 2020
“Unfortunately, not all of my fellow Democrats in this race have attended an AIPAC conference,” Bloomberg said at the conference on Monday, according to Bloomberg News. “One of them, Senator Sanders, has spent 30 years boycotting this event. And as you’ve heard by now, he called AIPAC a racist platform. Well, let me tell you, he’s dead wrong.”
“This is a gathering of 20,000 Israel supporters of every religious denomination, ethnicity, faith, color, sexual identity, and political party,” Bloomberg added. “Calling it a racist platform is an attempt to discredit those voices, intimidate people from coming here, and weaken the U.S.-Israel relationship. The reality is AIPAC doesn’t fuel hatred. AIPAC works to combat it—and the violence that it can produce. And if more elected officials spoke to the people here, they’d understand that.”
347 Reform, Conservative and Orthodox pulpit Rabbis to @BernieSanders:
As strong supporters of the U.S.-Israel relationship and AIPAC’s role in advancing it, we reject Senator Bernie Sanders’ outrageous comment accusing AIPAC of fostering bigotry. (1/8) #AIPACProud pic.twitter.com/B2LsYQzA0n
— AIPAC (@AIPAC) February 26, 2020
Bloomberg went on to clarify that he is in favor of a two-state solution for Jews and Palestinians, he said, but this should be “achieved through direct negotiations, because Israel must remain a prosperous, secure, and stable Jewish democracy and because Palestinians deserve dignity, democracy, and opportunity as well.”
Bloomberg, a former Republican, also in part defended President Donald Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, acknowledging the latter as Israel’s official capital. Bloomberg said he would have preferred it if Trump had achieved it through “direct negotiations.” However, he added, since it has been moved to Jerusalem it should stay there, “because that’s where it belongs.”
At the Democratic debate in South Carolina on Tuesday night, moderator Major Garrett of CBS News asked Sanders: “If elected, Senator Sanders, you would be America’s first Jewish president. You recently called a very prominent, well-known American Israel lobby a platform for ‘bigotry.’ What would you say to American Jews who might be concerned you’re not, from their perspective, supportive enough of Israel? And specifically, sir, would you move the U.S. Embassy back to Tel Aviv?”
Sanders said on Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation:” “I am not anti-Israel. I will do everything I can to protect the independence and the security and the freedom of the Israeli people. But what we need in this country is a foreign policy that not only protects Israel but deals with the suffering of the Palestinian people as well.”
