Today elections are taking place in California. In San Mateo, California's 12th district, we have both the Democratic party's primaries and elections for the US Senate and House of Congress.

Particularly important (and relevant to FactsOfIsrael.com) are the elections for our representative in the US Congress. The candidates are very much linked to Israel and the Middle East:

1) Our current Congressman is Tom Lantos (Dem.). Mr. Lantos was born in Hungary and is a Holocaust survivor. He has been our representative since 1981, suports the War on Islamic Terrorism, the War on Iraq and the Patriot Act. He's a passionate defender of Israel and he's a true Eagle, as defined by Andrew Sullivan. His site is http://www.lantos.org/

2) One of Mr. Lantos main opponents is Maad Abu-Ghazalah, a Palestinian born in Nablus, in the West Bank, who grew up in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He's today running as a Democrat and his main qualifications are that he served as the President of the San Francisco Chapter of the "American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee". His current platform calls for America abandoning Iraq and moving our troops out, and a more "evenhanded" policy in America's role in the Middle East peace process (this probably means no support for Israel's right to defend herself against Islamic mass murderers). He also wishes to repeal the Patriot Act, and he's against standardized testing. How can one person be so wrong?

3) There's also a Republican candidate, Mr. Mike Garza, who has mentioned that, if elected, he'll cancel all military and financial aid to Israel.

In our last elections, on 11/5/2002, Mr. Lantos received 68.2% of the vote, and his Republican counterpart, Mr. Michael Moloney, received 24.7%. Mr. Abu-Ghazalah ran then as a Libertarian and got 7.1% of the vote.

If you live in California's 12th district, please go out and vote. Israel, freedom, and Mr. Lantos need your support. For more information on the candidates and the elections try out www.smartvoter.org - type in your street address and ZIP code in the top right and click "Find Ballot".

Update: The election results have been published and I have some great news! Our Congressman, Mr. Tom Lantos, has won the Democratic ticket by a landslide:

United States Reprensentative 12th Congressional District (356 of 356 Precints Reported):

Tom Lantos: 74.18%
Ro Khanna: 18.21%
Maad Abu-Ghazalah: 7.61%

For a PDF file with more details, click here. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required in order to view these documents. If you do not have Acrobat Reader, click here to download it.

Posted by David Melle
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