Ex-Congressman to Discuss Middle East

Given Israel’s recent election of hard-liner Benjamin Netanyahu, former U.S. Rep. Mel Levine will discuss the future of the Middle East peace process at a July 11 breakfast meeting of the Valley Jewish Business Leaders Assn.

In the wake of the recent Likud victory in the Israeli elections, Levine, a Santa Monica Democrat, predicted that there will be some initial “bumps in the road” in U.S.-Israel relations and the peace process.

Those bumps, he said, will occur because U.S. officials were closely linked to slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and recently defeated Prime Minister Shimon Perez, both of the Labor party.

By August, though, the 53-year-old lawyer said, “Relations will be extremely cordial, because neither side will want to see conflict, especially in an election season.”

Admitting his partisan bias, Levine wagered that U.S.-Israel relations, and thus the peace process, will continue if President Clinton is reelected but will likely stall if Republican contender Bob Dole becomes the chief executive.

Levine is a chairman of Builders for Peace, a nonprofit group of Arab American and Jewish business leaders devoted to bringing economic development and American investment to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

He served a decade in the House of Representatives and five years in the state Assembly. The lawyer now works in the private sector.

The Middle Eastern situation and the recent Israeli elections are of intense interest to the members of the Valley Jewish Business Leaders Assn., many of whom have family members living in Israel, said program coordinator Marilyn Bloom.

The breakfast, which costs $15 for VJBLA members and $20 for nonmembers, will take place from 7:30 to 9 a.m. at the Warner Center Marriott, 21850 Oxnard St., Woodland Hills.

For information or reservations, call the association’s Bloom at (818) 774-3331 by Friday.