By JTA Staff
(JTA) – After weeks of skirting questions  about whether he would attend the annual conference held by AIPAC, the most influential Israel lobby group in the United States, Bernie Sanders has declared his intentions: No, he won’t go.

In a two-tweet statement Sunday afternoon, Sanders said he would skip the conference – a traditional can’t-miss for presidential candidates – because he is “concerned about the platform AIPAC provides for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights.”

His tweets, posted a day after Sanders scored a decisive victory in the Nevada caucuses, added fuel to a simmering debate over whether a Sanders administration would be good for Israel. The candidate has criticized Israel’s political leadership and taken on surrogates who support boycotting Israel. Polls suggest that American Jews have not warmed to him.

AIPAC – the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has supported a two-state solution and U.S. aid to Palestinians – responded with a statement calling Sanders’ comments “truly shameful.” The organization noted that Sanders has never attended an AIPAC conference, which it said draws more than 18,000 people.

“By engaging in such an odious attack on this mainstream, bipartisan American political event, Senator Sanders is insulting his very own colleagues and the millions of Americans who stand with Israel,” the statement said.

The dustup raises questions about whether AIPAC’s relevance in Democratic circles is waning and underscores the group’s struggle to maintain its bipartisan brand.

J Street, a liberal group that has sought to position itself as an alternative to AIPAC, had no trouble attracting Democratic candidates to its conference in October. Five presidential hopefuls, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Pete Buttigieg, then the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, spoke in person. Five others, notably former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, delivered video messages.

A major topic at the conference was whether the United States should consider withholding aid to press Israel to make policy changes – a question that itself marked a turning point in the Democratic conversation about Israel. Of those in attendance, Sanders offered the most robust support for pressuring Israel, while Buttigieg and Warren also backed using the assistance as a means to pressure Israel, although in more restrained terms. Biden and Klobuchar said leveraging the aid would be counterproductive.

While J Street has seen itself become a draw for presidential candidates, AIPAC has become an increasing source of controversy within some Democratic circles.

AIPAC has sought to strengthen its bipartisan bona fides. In addition to continuing to host Democratic politicians, its policy conferences in recent years have emphasized outreach to progressives, including by hiring staff dedicated to making inroads on the left. But such efforts have been complicated both by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s enthusiastic embrace of Trump and the increasing influence of far-left activist groups and Democratic lawmakers who are highly critical of Israel.

Left-wing activist groups have been pressuring Democratic presidential candidates to boycott the conference, which begins March 1 – a tough date for candidates pushing for votes in the 14 primaries scheduled for March 3.

Initially there were signs that Sanders would skip the conference, but cite his unwillingness to leave the campaign trail on the eve of Super Tuesday. But instead Sanders ultimately framed his decision as a rebuke of AIPAC, echoing comments he made last year.

In other situations, Sanders has demonstrated a willingness to accept a platform from those with whom he strongly disagrees. In 2015, during his previous run for president, he accepted an invitation to speak at Liberty University, an evangelical Christian institution that opposes abortion rights, gay marriage and other positions favored by Sanders. In explaining his decision to speak at the university, Sanders said through a spokesperson that it was “important to reach out to others who look at the world differently.”

Sanders has displayed a similar openness when dealing with pro-Palestinian figures. Despite his stated support for Israel and opposition to the BDS movement, Sanders deploys campaign surrogates who support the campaign to delegitimize Israel through divestment, sanctions and boycotts.

Warren seemed to take a similar step earlier this month, when in response to a question at a campaign event earlier this month in Derry, New Hampshire, she indicated that she would skip the AIPAC conference. The Jewish anti-occupation group IfNotNow said that the questioner, identified as Sarah O’Connor, was acting on its behalf. Warren did not push back against O’Connor’s questionable assertion that AIPAC was forging an “unholy alliance” with “Islamopohobes and antisemites and white nationalists” and insistence that “no Democrat should legitimize that kind of bigotry by attending their annual policy conference.”

Meanwhile, also in New Hampshire, Biden rejected pressure from an IfNotNow activist to boycott the AIPAC conference. Over the years, Biden has positioned himself as a friend of AIPAC and regularly attended its annual conference. As vice president, he spoke to the gathering and received standing ovations despite tensions between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government.

In contrast, in recent weeks Sanders – and some Democrats – have found themselves under attack from AIPAC or its allies.

The Democratic Majority for Israel, a year-old group founded by longtime Democratic strategist Mark Mellman, ran a six-figure ad campaign in Iowa last month that questioned Sanders’ health and his ability to defeat Trump in November, the Associated Press reported. The ads also ran in Nevada ahead of its Feb. 22 caucuses.

Mellman is a regular at the AIPAC conference. But Mellman has said the group operates independently of AIPAC. And AIPAC reportedly distanced itself from the ads by Mellman’s group, telling AP that it had nothing to do with them.

But earlier this month, AIPAC found itself in the middle of a separate controversy involving ads targeting some Democrats. AIPAC apologized and removed at least two Facebook ads that slammed “radical” Democrats in Congress, and altered a petition that said Israel’s harshest critics in Congress pose a threat “maybe more sinister” than ISIS and other terror groups.

The AIPAC apology was not entirely unqualified. The ads, it said, “alluded to a genuine concern of many pro-Israel Democrats about a small but growing group, in and out of Congress, that is deliberately working to erode the bipartisan consensus on this issue and undermine the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

Main Photo: 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders with IfNotNow volunteers in New Hampshire on June 29, 2019. (Photo courtesy of IfNotNow)