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Sinema Championed Creation of 'Department of Peace'

Senate candidate's far-left associations continue to fuel criticism

Kyrsten Sinema
Kyrsten Sinema / Getty Images
September 20, 2018

Democratic Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema once spearhead efforts to create a "Department of Peace," a signature policy of far-left anti-war doves who view America's efforts to defend itself internationally as overly aggressive and wrong, according to vote information viewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

Sinema, one of many far-left candidates across the country vying to turn Congress blue, pushed for several years as an Arizona state lawmaker to establish a "Department of Peace," an effort championed on the federal level for many years by radical, anti-Israel politicians such as Dennis Kucinich, a former Ohio congressman known for outlandish proposals rejected by the plurality of federal lawmakers.

Sinema co-sponsored an Arizona initiative to form a Department of Peace in 2006, and was the lead sponsor of the effort in 2007 and 2008, according to information published by the Arizona state legislature.

Sinema's state-level effort paralleled federal attempts to form such a department spearheaded by Kucinich.

Sinema's support for this movement, which has been routinely dismissed as outlandish and far-fetched, is likely to fuel ongoing questions about her past associations with anti-Israel groups and radical leftist.

Those who have supported a Department of Peace have come under fire from more mainstream politicians who have described the idea as unserious.

Sinema has a history of backing far-left fringe groups, including some that have harshly criticized Israel as an occupying force.

Sinema dove into anti-Israel activism in the early 2000s, when she organized for the Arizona Alliance for Peace and Justice (AAPJ), a group whose members have denounced Israel's "disproportionate" use of  "violence and oppression."

Sinema also once served as a spokesman for Women in Black, an anti-war group that was founded in part to support Palestinians during the Intifada.

In addition to her alliance with anti-Israel organizations, Sinema has thrown her support behind far-left causes, leading some to raise questions about what they described as uneven behavior.

The Free Beacon previously reported in 2003 that Sinema recalled "singing and spiraling" in a "pagan" dance pit during an anti-war protest rally.

Synema did not respond to a request for comment by press time.