CPAC Holds Event in Tel Aviv that Draws Huge Crowd

On Wednesday night, one of the most influential political organizations in the US, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) conducted its inaugural conference in Israel at a Tel Aviv hangar that drew thousands.

Ben Shapiro attends

Top officials of the Donald Trump administration and conservative activists were full of praise about Israel’s high birthrate and called on the people to take the conservative stance when it comes to cultural wars in America. They also discussed the contributions that Donald Trump had made to Israel during his tenure as the US president.

However, it was the keynote address of Ben Shapiro, the celebrity pundit, which drew most of the people. The event was conducted in the Hangar 11 in Tel Aviv and was attended by 2,500 people. Many of the attendees said that they had only attended to hear Shapiro and did not know that it was a CPAC conference.

It was mostly American-Israelis who attended the conference and it was apparent that some were religiously observant Jews because of the way they dressed. The chairman of CPAC, Matt Schlapp was the one who took the stage first and criticized CNN news for being too liberal. The audience booed the news channel.

CNN’s criticism

He said that Israel is America’s biggest ally in the Middle East, but CNN gives a different impression. According to Schlapp, CNN is part of a group of international forces and he hoped that conservatives in Israel would join those in America to stand up against them.

He asserted that they wanted to divide America and destroy it. Schlapp said that their goal was to make the US weaker and to tell people what to do. He went on to say that CPAC had been conducting conferences in different parts of the world to bring the conservatives together. He added that American conservatives had a lot to learn from their Israeli counterparts.

Organizers

The Tel Aviv International Salon, the Sella Meir publishing houses and Shibolet Press and the CPAC jointly organized the event conducted in Tel Aviv on Wednesday. A website founded by Ben Shapiro, the Daily Wire, had reported in June that it would be a CPAC conference.

This had promoted the Tel Aviv International Salon to send an email to all ticket holders, saying that it does not have any specific political views. It also encouraged them to arrive after 8:30 p.m., as most of the CPAC speeches would be done by then.

A number of speakers in the event talked about Trump and praised him effusively, who is expected to announce a bid for reelection. One of the speakers said that the former US president had accomplished things in the Middle East. They said that they need to have leaders like him.

John Rakolta, the former US ambassador to the UAE, talked about Trump’s efforts in brokering the Abraham Accords. He said that Trump had managed to achieve peace by going directly to the UAE and had bypassed the Palestinians in this process.