AIPAC stands by Katherine Clark as she walks back comment

House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) conducts a news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. (OM WILLIAMS/CQ-ROLL CALL, INC)

AIPAC said its endorsement is ‘unchanged’ and based on the House minority whip’s ‘long-standing support for the U.S.-Israel relationship’.

By Gabby Deutch, Reposted from Jewish Insider, August 19, 2025

After a video surfaced last week of Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA), the House minority whip, referring to Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, Clark walked back the remark on Monday (August 18) — and maintained her endorsement from AIPAC amid the controversy, a spokesperson for the group told Jewish Insider.

“Last week, while attending an event in my district, I repeated the word ‘genocide’ in response to a question,” Clark told the Jewish News Syndicate on Monday. “I want to be clear that I am not accusing Israel of genocide. … We all need to work with urgency to bring the remaining hostages home, surge aid to Palestinians and oppose their involuntary relocation, remove Hamas from power, and end the war.”

AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann told JI on August 18 that the organization will stick by Clark, the second-highest-ranked Democrat in the House.

“We appreciate that the congresswoman clarified her remarks, as Israel is fighting a just and moral war against a barbaric terrorist enemy. Our endorsement is unchanged and based upon her long-standing support for the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Wittmann said.

In a video from an event hosted by the Friends Committee on National Legislation in Cambridge, Mass., Clark made a passing reference to Israel’s actions in Gaza. “We each have to continue to have an open heart about how we do this, how we do it effectively, and how we take action in time to make a difference, whether that is stopping the starvation and genocide and destruction of Gaza, or whether that means we are working together to stop the redistricting that is going on, taking away the vote from people in order to retain power,” said Clark.

NOTE: Typically, any move by a politician that defies the standard pro-Israel position is followed by an apology like the one Rep. Clark issued here: an apology that ignores the facts behind the original statement. Other examples include Pramila Jayapal, Ilhan Omar, and even former President Jimmy Carter.

In June 2024, in what some analysts have called an attack on the democratic process, AIPAC spent over $17 million to topple Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., in June, and around $26 million to defeat Cori Bush.

(Read about AIPAC and the Israel lobby here and here. Much more here.)

Gabby Deutch is the Senior National Correspondent at Jewish Insider.

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