The leading Republican candidate for Senate in California, Tom Campbell, has come under fire his voting record on Israel, his connection to Sami Al-Arian and others with ties to Islamists, and his endorsement of Alison Weir, who promotes the conspiracy theory that Israel harvests the organs of Palestinians.
Weir’s organization, If Americans Knew, proudly proclaims Campbell’s endorsement on its website. Here it is, in full:
Tom Campbell, Former Congressman and Dean of Haas School of Business
How did Weir strike up her relationship with Campbell?
“I gave a speech, quite a few years ago,” Weir told me in a phone interview. “I’m fairly certain it was in 2001, probably Spring 2001. And Tom Campbell was there. And then afterwords he gave us that endorsement.”
Asked about the nature of her speech, Weir said she “described my recent trip as a freelance reporter to the West Bank and Gaza, and showed photos.”
We don’t have a firsthand account of what Weir said at the speech, but there is a paper trail of what she was saying about Israel at the time. In a piece titled “Gaza: A Report from the Front,” published in The New Intifida, Weir wrote: “You can feel the fear when we even see a soldier or a settler in the distance. These people are being terrorized …”
Weir ends here piece with a plea to cut American funds to Israel:
When Campbell was in the House, just a couple years before, he introduced the Campbell Amendment (twice, actually, in 1997 and 1999) to cut funding to Israel. In 1999, the amendment failed a House vote with an overwhelming vote, 13-413. Campbell was one of those 13 Members to vote in favor of his amendment.
When I asked Alison Weir why she still had the endorsement of Tom Campbell on her website, since it had been so many years, she said: “Because it was a strong endorsement, so I put it up, and it’s still there.”
