After days of repeated warnings to its activists not to disrupt Donald Trump, and to treat speakers with respect, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee leadership issued an extraordinary apology on March 22 — but not to the Republican front-runner.
Instead, AIPAC said it was sorry for its members who had applauded Turmp’s insulting remarks about President Barack Obama the previous night during his address to the pro-Israel lobby’s annual conference in Washington, DC. Many members roared and leapt to their feet when Trump suggested Obama was “the worst thing to ever happen to Israel.”
“While we may have policy differences, we deeply respect the office of the president of the United States and our President Barack Obama,” Lillian Pinkus, the lobby’s newly installed president, said from the AIPAC stage, joined by other AIPAC lay and professional leaders.“We are deeply disappointed that so many people applauded a sentiment that we neither agree with or condone.”
The evident anguish in the aftermath of Trump’s remarks undid the hopes that his speech would not hurt the lobby’s careful claims to bipartisanship, even as its Iran policy is more or less aligned wholly with Republicans. The Trump moment came during a conference with a slogan, “Come Together,” that AIPAC had hoped would signal a new day of bipartisanship.
Complaints that the lobby had given Trump a platform at its largest annual assembly without expressing official displeasure at his most controversial remarks about immigrants and Muslims led many to wonder how AIPAC would function in an election in which the likely GOP nominee has alienated much of the organized Jewish community.
AIPAC officials said before the conference that the event would be an opportunity for Trump to finally attach substance to his ideas. Trump’s prepared remarks included substantive and critical assessments of Obama’s Middle East policies, which AIPAC expected and indeed would have welcomed.
He also softened two positions that have created unease among pro-Israel activists — his earlier insistence he would remain neutral in brokering peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and a refusal to commit to recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
On Jerusalem, Trump vowed to move the American embassy to the city, “the eternal capital of the Jewish people.” And he said the Palestinians must accept as a given the closeness of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Trump opponents who had said they would protest the speech because of his attacks on minorities and his sanctioning of political violence were not visible during his speech, which earned repeated standing ovations.
Trump delivered broadsides against his likely rival in the general election, Hillary Clinton, calling her a “total disaster” and blaming her for last year’s Iran nuclear deal.
His rhetorical flourishes at the United Nations’ expense were crowd pleasers, too.
“The United Nations is not a friend of democracy. It’s not a friend to freedom. It’s not a friend even to the United States of America, where as all know, it has its home. And it surely isn’t a friend to Israel,” Trump said.
The largest group advocating some form of protest ahead of Trump’s appearance, the Reform movement, sounded a note of vindication the day after his speech.
“We were disappointed but not surprised that Mr. Trump did nothing tonight to allay our deep concerns about his campaign,” Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union of Reform Judaism, said in a statement. “It still seems that he does not share our values.”
Trump’s laceration of Obama is the last thing AIPAC needed at a time when the lobby is endeavoring to show it remains a bipartisan enterprise.
There were warm welcomes for Democrats at the conference, particularly Vice President Joe Biden, the closest administration member to AIPAC, who spoke of his decades of attachment to Israel in emotional terms. Yet it was clear the lobby still had difficulties in reconciling with Democrats. Only one Democrat from the vast majority in Congress who voted last year in favor of the Iran deal — Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the minority whip — addressed the conference.