— City Council President Carol Bellamy, who recently returned from a visit to Israel, said today that she come back with a better understanding of the importance Israel is attaching to the West Bank.
“During my visit to Israel I gained broader understanding of the West Bank issues and the vulnerability of Israel” in that regard, Bellamy said during a breakfast press conference at her office in City Hall. She said that during her II-day stay in Israel she visited a West Bank settlement, Tekoah, a few miles southeast of Bethlehem. She said she also visited the Lebanese border and the Golan Heights.
Bellamy, who described her trip as “private,” said, however, that she was “treated royally” by Israeli officials. She said that her visit in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and her meeting with the mayors of both cities, Teddy Kollek and Shlomo Lahat, respectively, left her with the impression that the cities of Israel are struggling with the same problems as New York City, though on a much smaller scale. She said that, while in Tel Aviv, the city workers were on strike because the city was unable to pay its employees. “That made me feel right at home,” she said.
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