By Donald H. Harrison

LA JOLLA, Calif.—Congresswoman Shelley Berkley made an emotional appeal at a packed America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) brunch in La Jolla on Sunday, April 2, for strong and continued American support of the Jewish state as it faces an Iran with nuclear aspirations and a Palestine with a terrorist government at its helm.

The Nevada Democrat urged more than 800 persons attending the annual San Diego AIPAC Brunch to help increase support in the Congress for resolutions calling for an end  to American financial support to the Palestinian government and the imposition of financial sanctions on the government of Iran.

Noting that her House colleague, Rep. Susan Davis (D-San Diego) was in the audience along with numerous aspirants for the 50^th Congressional District  seat left vacant by the recent conviction and imprisonment of former Rep. Randy Cunningham (R-San Diego), Berkley said pointedly that Davis was already in support of the resolutions, but that some of the candidates in the April 11 special election may well require more information from local AIPAC members in their district.

Among a long list of candidates for the congressional seat who were introduced to the crowd at the Torrey Pines Hilton were former
  U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, speaking at San Diego AIPAC brunch


U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-San Diego, and state Sen. Bill Morrow, R-Oceanside.  In addition to Berkley, a four-term member of Congress, the meeting featured presentations by Leslie Caspi, San Diego AIPAC’s incoming chair;  Dan Schwimmer, the outgoing chair; Ray and Rhona Fink, co-chairs of the brunch;  and by Gidi Grinstein, president of the non-partisan Re’ut Institute in Tel Aviv.

Berkley, a graduate 30 years ago of the University of San Diego School of Law, received the greatest share of applause from the crowd, with Rabbi Arthur Zuckerman enthusing from his seat in the large banquet room, “she’s the best speaker we’ve ever had.”

The congresswoman said she was not surprised by the recent victory of Hamas in the parliamentary elections of the Palestinian Authority.  “Arafat and the Fatah party had done a serious injustice to the Palestinian people,” she explained. “Rather than building an infrastructure, rather than building schools and health care services and providing for the public good, they
                                                                                      San Diego AIPAC chair Leslie Caspi on large screen

stole hundreds of millions of dollars that was meant to go to the Palestinian people, not Yasser Arafat’s private bank accounts all over the world .  It is a disgrace what he did to his people and the Palestinian people finally said, ‘no more.’”

However, she added, she also says “no more.  I am tired of giving the Palestinian Authority hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers money for them not to sit down and negotiate peace with the state of Israel, not to renounce terrorism, (not)  to create borders, (not) to renounce the right of return which would mean the elimination of a Jewish state of Israel.

“Isn’t it time that the world led by the United States of America must stop feeding this beast until the Palestinian  people, now led by Hamas, a terrorist organizaton, renounces terrorism, ends terrorism, disarms the terrorists, recognizes Israel’s right to exist, and, for the first time, make peace with the Jewish state of Israel?”

To date, she said, 202 members of Congress have co-sponsored legislation to block aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government “until it does the right thing.”

       
At left, Wayne Klitofsky and former U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray, and at right, Alan Viterbi, State Sen. Bill Morrow and Shearn Platt,  schmooze prior to AIPAC bruncheon.  Bilbray and Morrow are rival candidates in the April 11 special"
election to fill the seat of convicted and imprisoned U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. (Donald H. Harrison photos)

Berkley described Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons as the biggest problem in the world today.  Additionally, she said, that contry  “is the most active state sponsor of terrorism .

”Its president, as we are all painfully aware, has called for the elimination of the State of Israel ; he wants Israel wiped off the face of the map. I cannot overstate the danger of a nuclear Iran,” she said. “To that end, 350 of my colleagues have signed on and co-sponsored an Iran Freedom Support Act, which will place very strong sanctions on Iran until it decides not to move forward. 

”I  am not certain that sanctions or anything else is going to stop Iran.  I have little faith in the United Nations. The Security Council, while there are some members of it that will stand with the United States, there are at least two—China and Russia—who we know will not, so it is up to us to do what we can to pressure Iran.  I make no promises that this is the solution, but at this moment it is the solution that we have. “

In telling of her lifelong support for Israel, Berkley, one of 26 Jewish members of the Congress, told of her maternal ancestors being Sephardic Jews from Salonika, Greece, and her paternal ancestors being Ashkenazic Jews from the Russian-Polish border regions. Jewish communities in both regions were wiped out by the Holocaust, she said.