 MARCH 12 • 2020 | 37

AIPAC PARTISANSHIP continued

Later in his speech, defend-
ing the Trump administration’
s 
recent proposal to give Israel 
unilateral control of the West 
Bank, Friedman said that “the 
Biblical heartland of Israel, 
Judea and Samaria, will never 
be judenrein.
” It was far from 
the only defense of the White 
House’
s peace proposal at 
AIPAC, but it was the only 
one to invoke Nazi slang, as 
Friedman had previously done 
when he referred to leaders of 
the left-leaning pro-Israel group 
J Street as “kapos.
”
The ambassador’
s speech 
seemed to have unnerved 
AIPAC’
s leadership. Minutes 
after it ended, the Jerusalem 
Post’
s Lahav Harkov report-
ed that the organization was 
“unhappy” with Friedman’
s 
partisanship and would exclude 

his speech from its online video 
channel. As of Monday, March 
9, however, the video remained 
up.
Friedman’
s inveighing against 
Trump’
s enemies, real and per-
ceived, played out, while 6,000 
miles away, Israelis were vot-
ing once again to determine if 
either Prime Minister Benjamin 
Netanyahu or his centrist rival, 
Benny Gantz, could finally form 
a stable governing majority. 
When day broke in Washington 
on Tuesday, results in Israel 
seemed to be tipping toward 
Netanyahu, while Democrats 
in 14 states headed off to make 
their own preferences.
But by then, any sense of 
bipartisanship at the AIPAC 
conference seemed like more of 
a written promise than reality. 
Democratic Party leaders could 

still be found, as could one hour-
long panel on the current status 
of the Israeli left. (The takeaway 
was that they’
re largely in the 
wilderness, said Rami Hod of 
the progressive Berl Katznelson 
Center, resigned to throwing in 
with Gantz’
s centrist Blue and 
White Party.)
It was a conference designed 
for dueling political crises, with 
turbulent dynamics in both 
countries. And, in another 
timely twist, AIPAC notified 
conference attendees Wednesday 
that they had potentially been 
exposed to a visitor who tested 
positive for the coronavirus.
And yet, as it wound down, 
the partisanship continued to 
intensify.
“I do not mean this as a 
partisan jab, but we must recog-
nize these tendencies are more 

prevalent in one party than the 
other,
” Senate Majority Leader 
Mitch McConnell said, noting 
that Bloomberg was the lone 
Democratic candidate to make 
an in-person appearance. (Joe 
Biden and Amy Klobuchar sent 
video messages.) McConnell 
also criticized House Democrats 
for “slow-walking” a resolu-
tion condemning the Boycott, 
Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) 
movement, despite the House’
s 
overwhelming passage of such a 
measure last July.
That McConnell’
s Democratic 
counterpart, Senate Minority 
Leader Chuck Schumer, fol-
lowed him on the AIPAC stage 
did little to repair the breach. As 
AIPAC’
s 18,000 attendees began 
filing out, partisan divisions 
were as bare as ever, and the pol-
itics just as tumultuous. 

personal enjoyment, I was 
there because this conference 
also makes me uncomfortable. 
I grew up in Young Judaea, a 
Zionist youth movement that 
prides itself on being plural-
ist. One of my mentors in the 
movement, Edana Appel, once 
told me that being pluralist 
does not mean making every-
one equally comfortable, but 
rather making everyone equal-
ly uncomfortable. We do not 
learn or grow by seeking out 
the comfortable places and sur-
rounding ourselves only with 
like-minded people. 
Now, I am not suggesting 
that AIPAC makes everyone 
equally uncomfortable. There 
are thousands of people who 
attend the conference, and 
some certainly find more to 
agree with on the main stage 
than others. One thing that 
stuck out for me this year was 
the different tolerance levels 

people have for criticism of 
Israeli government policy. 
I have lived in Israel multiple 
times; I love Israel deeply and 
I strongly identify as a Zionist. 
It is for those very reasons that 
I find it troubling when some 
politicians and leaders indicate 
from AIPAC’
s stage that a lack 
of criticism is a prerequisite 
for friendship of Israel. James 
Baldwin famously wrote, “I 
love America more than any 
other country in the world and, 
exactly for this reason, I insist 
on the right to criticize her 
perpetually.” 
I recognize that it is not 
AIPAC’
s mission to critique the 
policy of the Israeli government. 
But in breakout sessions that 
occur throughout the confer-
ence, it is possible to hear a 
wide variety of views on Israeli 
domestic and foreign policy. 
There were sessions offered on 
Israeli LGBTQ+ activism and the 

rights of minorities within Israel, 
among a wide variety of other 
sessions. I personally attended 
a session on the foundations of 
Christian Zionism and one on 
how — and whether — to think 
of Israel as reishit smichat geu-
lateinu, the first flowering of our 
redemption. 
Unfortunately, those conver-
sations were off the record, so I 
can’
t share more about them. I 
can say that I believe that if more 
of the content of those conversa-
tions made their way to the main 
stage, I — and others — would 
feel differently about AIPAC as 
an organization. 
I am deeply concerned about 
the rapid escalation of rhetoric 
between the left wing of the 
Democratic party and people at 
AIPAC who style themselves as 
“the most pro-Israel.
” I am dis-
tressed that Sen. Bernie Sanders 
felt that he could deliver a speech 
at Liberty University, but that 

attending AIPAC was some-
how a bridge too far. I am also 
disturbed by the name-calling 
and insults directed at Sanders 
from Israeli officials, as well as 
not-so-thinly veiled messaging 
from AIPAC CEO Howard Kohr 
about who is — or is not — a 
“friend of Israel.
” 
One of the most impactful 
sessions I went to challenged 
me to think about the moral 
compromises I make myself 
and the ones I allow — or don’
t 
allow — from others. We make 
certain sacrifices — and yes, 
moral compromises — to be a 
part of a bipartisan gathering like 
AIPAC. My fervent hope is that 
Americans of all political stripes 
will continue to engage in con-
versations at this conference and 
back home that will make them 
uncomfortable. 

Ben Freed is a rabbinical student from 

Metro Detroit.

PLURALISM continued

