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Hillary Clinton invoked on Monday the annual Pride celebration in Tel Aviv, considered the largest in Asia, while differentiating Israel from other countries in the Middle East known for draconian anti-LGBT laws.

The Democratic presidential front-runner made the remarks in D.C. at the U.S.-Israel Policy Conference hosted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying group that advocates for Israeli interests in the United States.

“We cannot be neutral about Israel and Israel’s future because in Israel’s story, we see our own and the story of all people who struggle for freedom and self-determination,” Clinton said. “There’s so many examples. We look at the Pride parade in Tel Aviv, one of the biggest and most prominent in the world, and we marvel that such a bastion of liberty exists in a region so plagued by intolerance.”

Clinton’s reference to the Tel Aviv Pride event, which drew an estimated 150,000 people last year, drew applause from the pro-Israel audience in attendance. In 2016, the Tel Aviv Pride celebration is set to begin on May 29 and continue until June 5. The Tel Aviv Pride parade is scheduled for June 3.

Meanwhile, LGBT people often endure violence and hostility in other areas of the Middle East, where many countries punish homosexuality with imprisonment or death. The Islamic State of Iraq & Syria, or ISIS, has reportedly thrown men perceived as gay from rooftops and reportedly hanged a transgender woman by her breasts near Damascus. Iran has a record of executing gay men in public by hanging.

But the main theme of Clinton’s speech was her vision of U.S. solidarity with Israel, which she said was now “more indispensable than ever” because of growing threats that include Iran, ISIS, violent extremism and efforts to delegitimize Israel.

“We have to combat all these trends with even more intense security and diplomatic cooperation,” Clinton said. “The United States and Israel must be closer than ever, stronger than ever and more determined than ever to prevail against our shared adversaries and advance our shared values.”

Clinton repudiated the movement in the United States to boycott and divest from Israel because of criticism of the country’s human rights record toward Palestinians, calling such efforts “alarming” and associating it with anti-Semitism.

Although she never mentioned Donald Trump by name, Clinton took a jab at the Republican presidential front-runner, who has taken positions on the campaign trial seen as bigoted toward minority groups.

“Now in a democracy, we’re going to have differences, but what Americans are hearing on the campaign trail this year is something else entirely, encouraging violence, playing coy with white supremacists, calling for 12 million immigrants to be rounded up and deported, demanding we turn away refugees because of their religion and proposing a ban on all Muslims entering the United States,” Clinton said. “Now, we’ve had dark chapters in our history before. We remember the nearly 1,000 Jews aboard the St. Louis who were denied entry in 1939 and sent back to Europe. But America should be better than this. And I believe it’s our responsibility as citizens to say so.”

Making the case the United States can’t be “neutral” in the U.S.-Palestinian conflict is a reference to Trump, who said last month he wants to “be sort of a neutral guy” in the hostility. Trump later clarified during a debate in March he’s “very, very pro-Israel,” but wants to take a neutral approach to achieve peace in the region.

Linda Maizels, director of Israeli and international concerns for the D.C.-based Jewish Council for Public Affairs, attended the conference and said Clinton’s invocation of Tel Aviv Pride was “terrific.”

“Clinton really looked for the areas where Israel itself — and I think they have a terrific record of being welcoming to the LGBT community, also women’s rights — does a great job of reaching out and promoting the democratic values that we all support,” Maizels said.

Weeks after an anti-Israel protest closed down a pro-Israel panel at the National LGBTQ Task Force’s annual Creating Change conference and roiled LGBT advocates who support the country, Maizels said Clinton’s words were a stand against accusing Israel of “pinkwashing,” or supporting LGBT rights as a means to distract from its record toward the Palestinians.

“It’s not just Israel who talks about its own record on supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual rights, it’s other people who recognize it as well,” Maizels said.