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Bernie Sanders was right to skip AIPAC.
The current front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination would be the first Jewish president. He once lived in Israel. But he refused to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference this week because, he said, the pro-Israel lobby has become a platform for those who “express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights.” He added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a “reactionary racist.”
AIPAC, and Netanyahu, seemed intent on proving Sanders’s point.
As the conference opened in Washington on Sunday, Netanyahu, speaking to the group via satellite on the eve of Israel’s elections, derided the Palestinians as “the pampered children of the international community.” The AIPAC audience applauded.
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