2 March 2012
Top American and Israeli Leaders to Headline Conference
WASHINGTON — The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual Policy Conference is the most important event of the year for America’s pro-Israel community. This year’s conference will be the largest Policy Conference in AIPAC history, with more than 13,000 people participating and thousands heading to Capitol Hill on the final day of the three-day conference to lobby Congress in support of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
This year’s conference gathers at a time when the global threat posed by Iran is at an all-time high. Iran is nearing nuclear-weapons capability, jeopardizing American national security and threatening our friends in the Gulf as well as our broader interests in the Middle East. Tehran’s terrorist proxies have heightened their efforts to strike against U.S. and Israeli targets worldwide—from Washington D.C. to Thailand. And Iran’s leaders call for Israel to be wiped off the map as they pursue nuclear weapons that would pose an intolerable threat to the Jewish state.
Speaking to this very issue and the dangerous national security threat posed by Iran are the leaders of both the United States and Israel. Headlining this year’s conference will be President of the United States Barack Obama, Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, President of Israel Shimon Peres, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Conference delegates will also hear addresses by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI), Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA), as well as Republican candidates for President former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Sen. Rick Santorum and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Other notable conference speakers include: U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor, Reps. Howard Berman (D-CA), Tom Cole (R-OK), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Nita Lowey (D-NY), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Peter Roskam (R-IL), Steve Rothman (D-NJ), Tim Scott (R-SC) and Brad Sherman (D-CA).
On the final day of the conference, thousands of AIPAC delegates will participate in approximately 500 lobbying meetings with members of the House and Senate in order to demonstrate support for critical security assistance for Israel and increasingly stringent sanctions on Iran designed to thwart its pursuit of nuclear weapons. AIPAC activists will also be encouraging their representatives to support strengthening the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship.
Consistently ranked as the most influential foreign policy lobbying organization on Capitol Hill, AIPAC is a bipartisan American membership organization that seeks to strengthen the relationship between the United States and Israel. For more than 50 years, AIPAC has been working with Congress to build a strong, vibrant relationship between the U.S. and Israel. With more than 100,000 members across the United States, AIPAC works throughout the country to improve and strengthen that relationship by supporting U.S.-Israel military, economic, scientific and cultural cooperation.