Christie Apologizes After Comments Upset Some GOP Zionist Donors

LAS VEGAS – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie won hearty applause from major Jewish donors with a speech Saturday heavy on appeals for GOP unity and strong support for Israel. Christie mostly avoided foreign policy specifics, but he enraptured the crowd gathered for the Republican Jewish Coalition spring meeting with tales of his own trips to Israel, and criticism of the Obama administration’s foreign policy.

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Christie stepped on a fault line in highly fraught Middle East politics, when he referred to the “occupied territories,” a term Zionists eschew. But top GOP bundler Lew Eisenberg said after the speech that Christie proved “he understands the important of Israel and the interdependency of the United State and Israel.”

Morton Klein, president of the hawkish Zionist Organization of America, was less forgiving. He confronted Christie after his speech about his use of the term, telling POLITICO he explained to the New Jersey governor that “at minimum you should call it disputed territories.”

Klein said he mentioned the issue to Adelson, who promised he’d raise it in private with Christie.
Christie was non-committal, said Klein, who concluded afterwards that the governor “either doesn’t understand the issue at all, or he’s hostile to Israel.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/chris-christie-jewish-donors-105164.html#ixzz2xPtmqFlm