McConnell gets tepid reception at AIPAC
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was met with little enthusiasm during his appearance on the final day of the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference, even as he touted measures popular with supporters of the Jewish state, including a Senate bill to counter the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, or BDS, which seeks to impose economic penalties on Israel for its treatment of the stateless Palestinian people.
McConnell took the stage right after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his own address via video link from Israel, where he returned after a Palestinian rocket attack north of Tel Aviv injured seven.
Though the reception — by an audience reportedly 18,000 strong — was by no means hostile, it did suggest that Republican efforts to attract Jewish support have yet to find much traction. McConnell’s appearance came just a day after Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., decided to quote from Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” in order to attack Democrats and defend President Trump.
McConnell, one of several leading Republicans to speak at AIPAC, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence appearing the day before, immediately launched into a diatribe against his Democratic opponents, though he did not mention any of them by name.
“Your advocacy is not a conspiracy,” McConnell said, in reference to tweets by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who has been accused of anti-Semitism for her tweets about AIPAC and Israel. “Your passion is nothing to apologize for,” he added, making the requisite pause for applause. But that applause was sporadic at best.
“Look,” McConnell said a little later, his tone sharpened, “none of you came here for partisan politics, and it’s not my intention to engage in it.”
He then proceeded to say that anti-Israel views “are confined to a small fringe today,” but that the “small fringe is gaining momentum within the far left and increasingly shaping the left’s agenda. Left unchallenged the ancient slurs and slanders will be normalized anew.” He did not say how Democrats’ views on Israel were being shaped by an anti-Israel faction. He appeared to be referencing to Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich, the other Muslim woman in the 116th Congress.
He said he was “troubled” that House Democrats passed a resolution broadly condemning several varieties of hate instead of specifically targeting Omar’s purported anti-Semitism, as had been originally intended. For critics, the resolution was a tacit acceptance of Omar’s views. Others, however, wondered when Republicans would condemn racism and anti-Semitism within their own midst.
McConnell was also “troubled” because many 2020 Democratic contenders had not shown up at AIPAC, in his view because they had been scared away by “political partisans,” an apparent reference to progressive group MoveOn’s call for the presidential candidates to stay away from the conference.
Their decision likely resulted from the fact that the conference is closely tied to Netanyahu’s conservative government. Netanyahu has also been accused of corruption, though that hasn’t soured his relationship with President Trump, who received him at the White House on Monday.
But even though AIPAC is now much more closely aligned with Republicans than Democrats, the majority in the audience seemed to show little interest in McConnell’s divisive rhetoric. They had, after all, heard more or less the same attacks for three days, even as they also heard Democrats bemoaning the use of anti-Semitism as a wedge issue.
McConnell noted that the anti-BDS bill, which passed the Senate, has been opposed by some House Democrats. Critics see the legislation as being less about punishing companies that complied with the boycott — the stated intention of the measure — and more about laying bare divisions over Israel in the Democratic Party.
“Give it a vote in the House,” McConnell said, in what appeared to be the biggest applause line in his speech.
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