MoveOn Calls For A Boycott of The 2019 AIPAC Convention

Adam Millstein is a super-wealthy-- and crooked-- Israeli real estate developer who moved to the U.S. in 1981 when he was 30 and took out American citizenship while holding onto his Israeli citizenship as well. He is the founder and chairman of the Israeli-American Council and has founded multiple groups to push right-wing Israeli positions disguised as "Jewish." He is one of AIPAC's biggest donors and a member of their National Council. Immediately after a deranged white nationalist murdered 50 Muslims praying in 2 mosques in New Zealand, Millstein asserted on his Twitter account-- which has been rated one of the 25 most influential accounts on "Jewish Twitter" -- that two members of the U.S. Congress, Ilan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) are members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Both have been getting multiple death threats and neither is in any way connected to the Muslim Brotherhood or any of the other organizations Millstein has been smearing them with. Although AIPAC bumped him from the speakers roster, they have refused to kick him off their National Council.

Millstein makes his political contributions through his firm, Hager Pacific Properties. Last cycle He gave $50,436 to Republicans and $22,300 to right-wing Democrats. His top recipient was Kevin McCarthy. It was the same pattern in 2016-- most money going to Republicans and Kevin McCarthy getting the biggest amount.

Although their are literally dozens of congressmembers lined up to speak, the headliners at this year's AIPAC conference will be indicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with back up on the podium by knee jerk supporters of his policies from both parties: Mike Pence, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, McTurtle and Kevin McCarthy. MoveOn polled it's members and found that an overwhelming 74.3% agree that progressive candidates for president should skip the conference.

These were the facts on which MoveOn based its decision to do the poll and they are the facts they shared with the members:

• AIPAC spent tens millions of dollars in 2015 to defeat the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by President Obama along with our European and international allies-- a historic diplomatic agreement that Trump has tried to derail since taking office.


• This year's AIPAC conference is headlined by Benjamin Netanyahu … who has been indicted on bribery and fraud charges, and recently made a deal to bring the "Israeli KKK" ... party into the next government.


• AIPAC has ... been known to peddle anti-Muslim and anti-Arab rhetoric while giving platforms to Islamophobes.


• AIPAC has refused to condemn the antisemitism of Republicans, such as Trump's friend and advisor Steve Bannon. Bannon's wife reported that he had their kids removed from a school because of "the number of Jews that attend", and that "he didn't want the girls going to school with Jews. While many groups condemned Bannon, Politico reported that AIPAC "declined to weigh in.

I would suggest to anyone who was thinking of going to the event to instead contribute to the reelection campaign of Ilhan Omar, who is being targeted for political extermination for her outspoken opposition to far right-policies of the Netanyahu government. AIPAC has long painted opposition to Israel's Likud Party as antisemitism. It isn't and neither Ilan Omar nor Rashia Tlaib is antisemitic. AIPAC has been able to defeat several other politicians who had the temerity to dare challenge conventional wisdom about U.S. policy towards Israel-- Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), Earl Hilliard (D-AL), Paul Findley (R-IL), Chuck Percy (R-IL) to name a few. Let's make sure they can't do the same to Ilhan Omar. You can contribute to her campaign-- and to Rashida Tlaib's-- by clicking on the Worthy Incumbents ActBlue page on the right. Oh, wow... they do it in the U.K. too! And there they have been active in trying to destroy the career of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn with a relentless publicity campaign trying to paint him-- inaccurately-- as antisemitic. So far, we know Elizabeth Warren, Bernie, Kamala Harris, Julian Castro, Beto, Jay Inslee, and Mayor Pete have no intention of going to AIPAC's event. I wonder if Biden, Klobuchar, Booker and Gillibrand plan to show up; it's their kind of scene.