Close to a dozen members of both houses of Congress were in Israel this week. Among the delegations were a Senate team including Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) and Sen. Chick Hagel (R-Neb.); a Florida team including Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (D-Fla.) and Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), who joined for a time a trade delegation led by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R.); Sen. Joe Liberman (I-Conn.), traveling on his own; a four-person delegation led by Rep. David Price (D-N.C.), who chairs the U.S. House of Representatives Democracy Assistance Commission, which advocates for assistance to democratic governments; and Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) on a two-week tour of Europe and the Middle East focusing on Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe issues and culminating in the OSCE conference on anti-Semitism next week in Romania. Hastings, a past president of the OSCE parliamentary assembly and a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee, also met with top Israeli intelligence officials. Many of the trips, taking place during the week-long Memorial Day break, were not publicized in advance because members continued on to Iraq. Such trips are kept quiet until after the fact because of security considerations.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
