Bernie Sanders officially announced that he will not attend the American Israel Public Affairs Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., next week.
The Democratic presidential candidate plans on sending a copy of his remarks to attendees on Monday, the same day that Hillary Clinton is slated to speak.
The only Jewish presidential candidate wrote a letter to AIPAC President Robert Cohen on Friday regretting that he will be “travelling throughout the West and the campaign schedule that we have prevents us from attending.” He also claimed that he would have ‘very much enjoyed speaking at the AIPAC conference” as “issues impacting Israel and the Middle East are of the utmost importance to me, to our country and to the world.”
Sanders is the only candidate still in the 2016 race not attending the conference.
On the campaign trail, voters and politicians have questioned Sanders’ views on the state of Israel. The democratic socialist often speaks of his family who came from Poland to America to escape the Holocaust as a means of relating to American immigrants. He also reportedly lived on an Israeli Kibbutz, where he met his first wife.
Sanders does not identify as particularly religious and often avoids commenting on U.S.-Israeli relations in the political arena.
“Since AIPAC has chosen not to permit candidates to address the conference remotely, the best I can do is to send you a copy of the remarks that I would have given if I was able to attend,” Sanders wrote. “We should be able to get that speech to you on Monday. Any help that you could give us in getting those remarks out to your members would be much appreciated.”
