A cancelled event advocating for economic boycotts of Israel has been rescheduled down the street from its original location in one of the House of Representatives office buildings, according to an invitation obtained Thursday by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
The briefing, sponsored by the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, is being billed as a “Capitol Hill event” about the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, but will be occurring at the United Methodist Building. TWS reported Monday that Texas congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee was listed as the anonymous sponsor of the event when it was scheduled to occur in a room in the Rayburn House Office Building next to the U.S. Capitol.
The congresswoman’s office withdrew sponsorship Tu
Jackson Lee’s office told TWS Thursday that the congresswoman would not be attending the event in its new location, either.
“I haven’t heard anything about it, we haven’t dealt with it after Tuesday,” said Mike McQuerry, Jackson Lee’s communications director. “We weren’t planning on … going to this one, we didn’t know anything about it. So we won’t be going to that one.”
A number of other Democratic lawmakers were quick to disassociate themselves from the event Monday, telling TWS that they would not be attending and had not sponsored the room where it was scheduled to occur.
The rebranded event this Friday will feature “leading student, faith-based, civil society, and legal practitioners” of BDS discussing why the movement is “so urgently needed” as well as “what the Israeli government and its US supporters are doing to suppress it,” per the invitation.
The BDS movement is described by the Anti-Defamation League as “a biased effort to demonize Israel and place the entire onus of the conflict on one side.” It has been denounced by both Republican and Democratic lawmakers.