On Monday morning, before Hillary Clinton delivered what some felt was the best speech of her life to a Jewish audience, Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer sat onstage and agreed that when they travel abroad they are neither Democrat nor Republican – just American. And when it comes to Israel, they agreed that the U.S. needed to make sure Israel has what it needs to be able to defend itself and remain secure and sovereign.
All the presidential candidates who spoke – Clinton and Trump and Cruz and Kasich – had different variations of the same message: They would not allow the United Nations Security Council to bypass Israel’s right to protect its present and future.
I was there with three generations of Ciments, including my 17-year-old daughter, my parents, and my aunt and uncle. I mention this because although each of us experienced the AIPAC Policy Conference through differing lenses of age, life experience, and values, we all seemed able to hone in on the core messages we heard from event to event.
There is a popular notion that people look forward to coming to AIPAC to hear platitudes. A few of the speakers, such as Vice President Joe Biden in his Sunday night address, even acknowledged that some of their statements could be seen as trite and shallow.
And yet, despite the thought that they were probably preaching to the choir, it felt really good to be in that particular choir.
And when the patriotic music was booming and the red and blue “Come Together” messages were flashing from video screens all around the 18,000 choir members – Jewish and Christian, white, black, and Latino – who had come together to support Israel, all I could think of was: Where do I sign up for next year?