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TAKING THE STAGE

Top four congressional leaders to address AIPAC leadership meeting

The meeting’s agenda is split roughly evenly between sessions on Middle East regional policy and AIPAC’s U.S. political strategy

AIPAC

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks at the AIPAC Policy Conference

The top four congressional leaders — House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffires (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — are all set to address AIPAC’s Congressional Summit in Washington, D.C., which kicked off on Sunday.

Approximately 1,600 AIPAC leaders and activists will attend the convening, according to AIPAC spokesman Marshall Wittmann, which will also include remarks by Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog and a lobbying component calling for emergency Israel funding, full-year 2024 Israel funding and passage of the SHIP Act, an Iran oil sanctions bill that’s expected to be considered in committee in the Senate soon.

“The priority lobbying message will be to House Republicans to urge their leadership to urgently pass a bipartisan emergency funding bill for Israel without conditions and that can be signed into law by the president,” Wittmann said. “This message will be amplified with emails and phone calls to Congress from our 4 million members.”

This week’s meeting is the latest in a series of scaled-down AIPAC summits that have, in recent years, replaced the organization’s former flagship policy conference. Last year’s conference focused significantly on the group’s electoral strategy.

A partial schedule for the conference obtained by Jewish Insider indicated that, outside of the keynote speeches by key leaders, the event’s agenda will be split roughly evenly between sessions on Middle East regional policy and the war in Gaza, and sessions on AIPAC’s political strategy and the 2024 congressional election cycle.

Last year’s event featured remarks from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Secretary of State Tony Blinken addressed another AIPAC meeting in June 2023. Wittmann did not address questions about whether any administration officials will be speaking at this week’s event.

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