Incoming White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is facing criticism over a 2019 op-ed where she criticized the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Jean-Pierre is first Black and openly LGBTQ person to hold the position.
The article, which ran in Newsweek, praised the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates for skipping AIPAC’s annual conference. “AIPAC is not progressive,” wrote Jean-Pierre. “You cannot call yourself a progressive while continuing to associate yourself with an organization like AIPAC that has often been the antithesis of what it means to be progressive.”
“Unfortunately, AIPAC’s policy and conference speaker choices aren’t its only problems. Its severely racist, Islamophobic rhetoric has proven just as alarming,” it continues. “The organization has become known for trafficking in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab rhetoric while lifting up Islamophobic voices and attitudes.”
Jean-Pierre was a senior advisor and national spokesperson for MoveOn when she wrote the piece. The liberal advocacy group has consistently called on Democrats to skip AIPAC events.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman denounced the hiring on Twitter. “Amidst all the celebration of Biden’s new press secretary checking multiple boxes in identity politics, the mainstream media forgot to mention that she hates Israel,” he wrote.
Zionist Organization of America national president Mort Klein also released a statement. “As a child of Holocaust survivors and as an American Jew, I am appalled and frightened that Biden has chosen Ms. Jean-Pierre, who has shown essentially anti-Semitic hostility towards Israel and is willing to lie about and vilify Israel and Jews to promote her Israelophobic [sic] agenda,” it reads. “Americans should be deeply concerned that this outrageous, incomprehensible anti-Israel, pro-terrorist and pro-Iran appointment indicates the dangerous direction the Biden administration is going to take against America’s greatest ally Israel and US-Israel relations.”
AIPAC has faced increasing criticism from Democrats in recent months. The pro-Israel lobbying group’s newly-launched Super PAC has endorsed candidates from both sides of the aisle this midterm season, but 109 of them are congressional Republicans who tried to block President Biden’s presidential victory in 2020. “AIPAC’s support for these candidates undermines the true interests and values of millions of American Jews and pro-Israel Americans who AIPAC often claims to represent,” said the liberal Zionist group J Street in a statement, “Elected officials who threaten the very future of our country should be completely beyond the pale – whatever their views on Israel.”
Last month the Progressive Caucus of the North Carolina Democratic Party rescinded its endorsement of House candidate Valerie Foushee over the fact that Foushee had received AIPAC campaign contributions. “No American candidate should be accepting funds from an organization that provides financial support for those seeking to destroy our democracy,” said the group.
AIPAC’s Super PAC has already spent over $1 million in Democratic races this election cycle, but none of their ads actually mention Israel. Recent polling shows that support for the country is declining among Democratic voters.