The entrance sign to the Busboys and Poets restaurant. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org — Candidates for chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) will participate in a forum later this month at a restaurant owned by an anti-Israel activist, the Washington Free Beacon reported Thursday.

The program, hosted by the Democratic advocacy group Democracy in Color, will be held at the Washington, DC-based Busboys and Poets, a restaurant and theater owned by Iraqi-born, far-Left advocate Andy Shallal.

The Free Beacon provided footage from the World Says No to the Israel Occupation rally in 2007, at which Shallal was caught on video making a speech about how “Israel continues to violate international law…while the US and its allies sit on the side, getting its marching orders from Tel Aviv,” and that “Israel control[s] and terrorize[s] the region.”

In that speech, Shallal also said, “Palestinians continue to be ethnically cleansed, humiliated, harassed, imprisoned, serially murdered, and assassinated,” adding that “over 300,000 Palestinians have been killed directly because of the occupation.”

Further, the Free Beacon quoted a report from 2013 that said Busboys and Poets has sold t-shirts stating “Occupation Isn’t Pretty,” referring to Israeli control in the disputed territories.

All the major nominees besides Labor Secretary Tom Perez have confirmed that they plan to attend the event.

The DNC chairmanship race has been dogged by an antisemitism controversy, as the frontrunner emerged as Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who is affiliated with radical group Nation of Islam and its leader Louis Farrakhan, has voted against funding the Iron Dome missile system and promoted other anti-Israel congressional actions. Ellison’s DNC bid has drawn significant opposition from the Jewish community, including from long-time Jewish Democrats such as Haim Saban, who has said that Ellison’s party chairmanship “would be a disaster for the relationship between the Jewish community and the Democratic Party.” Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz has publicly said that he will resign from the party if Ellison is elected.