Campbell uses Calif. Senate debate to refute rivals’ claims that he doesn’t support Israel

Calif. Senate debate focuses on support for Israel

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Former congressman Tom Campbell on Friday used the first debate in the California Senate race to demand that his challengers not engage in a “whispering campaign” claiming he is against Israel or is an anti-Semite.

Campbell and his two opponents in the Republican primary, former Hewlett Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina and state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, participated in their first debate, hosted by Sacramento radio station KTKZ-AM. Fiorina joined by telephone.

Campbell requested the debate after his opponents began questioning his support for Israel. Their attacks were based on his voting record when he served in the House of Representatives, and a campaign donor who later was revealed to have ties to a U.S.-listed terrorist organization.

The debate took a sharper turn after the Los Angeles Times reported that Fiorina’s campaign manager, Marty Wilson, told former California secretary of state Bruce McPherson that Campbell was an anti-Semite.

Wilson denied he had said it, but the report spread quickly across the Internet and worked its way into news stories.

Fiorina and DeVore subsequently questioned whether Campbell was sufficiently supportive of Israel during his five terms in office.

“There’s no place for calling me an anti-Semite and then denying it,” Campbell said about a topic that dominated the first half of the hour-long debate. “That whispering campaign, that silent slander stops today.”

Fiorina said her campaign manager assured her he did not accuse Campbell of being anti-Semitic. But she said Campbell had voted to cut foreign aid to Israel, and that he was one of only 34 members of Congress who voted against Jerusalem being the undivided capital of Israel.

DeVore took a swipe at Fiorina’s campaign for making “unsubstantiated charges,” referring specifically to the anti-Semite dustup. But he refused to back away from calling Campbell a “friend to our enemies” for his association with a University of South Florida professor who later pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid a Palestinian terrorist group.

Campbell received a $1,300 campaign contribution from Sami Al-Arian in 2000 and later wrote a letter on his behalf asking the university not to fire him.

Freking reported from Washington, D.C.