David Livingston, a Republican member of the Arizona state legislature, met Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council, on a visit to Israel with his wife last Thanksgiving.
During a tour he gave the couple, Dagan told the state representative that the United States and the rest of the world identifies the area incorrectly as the “West Bank” rather than “Judea and Samaria.” Dagan asked Livingston to help remedy that.
Livingston told JNS that he asked a lot of questions in Israel and heard often in response that “it’s complicated.”
“But I told Yossi, ‘Doing the right thing is not complicated, you just have to do it,’” he said. “I said, ‘I will do this for you.’”
Livingston led an effort in the Arizona state legislature to pass a resolution calling on the state to use “Judea and Samaria” instead of “West Bank.” JNS spoke with Livingston at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills, Calif., on April 30. He received an award from the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles at the event, which drew about 1,100 people and celebrated Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day.
Prior to the event, Livingston, who was one of five elected officials in the region to receive an award for their contributions to the U.S.-Israel partnership, told JNS that it was a “little overwhelming.”
“I did not do this for this. I’ve never been here before,” he said. “There’s a lot to take in, and shake hands and I’m enjoying myself, but I don’t quite know what to expect once we go inside.”
Passing the bill was a struggle, because Democratic colleagues opposed it, he told JNS.
“It was very strongly worded that this is religious and this is based on the Bible and this is based on principles, and they just couldn’t accept it,” he said. “So disappointing to me personally.”
“We have some Jewish Democrats, and they said, ‘David, I cannot do this. I’m being primaried. I’m being challenged from the Left,’” Livingston told JNS. “I said, ‘All the more reason you need to do this. You need to stand up for this,’ and they just couldn’t do it.”
The state representative, who is Christian, still doesn’t “completely understand” the decision of his Democratic colleagues, he told JNS. He said that Judaism and Christianity “naturally, to me, go together. They’re hand-in-glove.”
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, vetoed a prior bill recognizing the term “Judea and Samaria,” which passed the legislature, which is why it was necessary to pass a resolution, according to Livingston.
He hopes that the state will elect a Republican governor, who will sign the bill into law. (Primaries are slated for July for the November Arizona gubernatorial election.)
Livingston thinks it was “even more important” to come to the Israeli consulate event “to not only represent myself and my family, but the state of Arizona and show we are with you,” amid the war with Iran and Israel’s efforts to eliminate the threat of Hamas and Hezbollah, he told JNS.
‘Remain vigilant’
Dan Dow, district attorney of San Luis Obispo County in Central California, another award winner, told JNS that “being honored is very humbling.”
“I don’t feel like I deserve any honor. I’m so pleased and honored to be here, to celebrate this momentous occasion with all Israelis, American Jews and it’s just an amazing time in history,” he said.
He added that he wanted to “express my solidarity with all Jews across the world.”
“We’re in a time where there’s been a lot more darkness coming back, but I’m very optimistic for the energy that’s here tonight and that we’re going to do everything we can to stamp out that dark side of humanity,” Dow told JNS at the event.
The county is a “pretty safe community,” but Jew-hatred “happens anywhere,” according to Dow, who is investigating an incident, in which two Jewish students were attacked at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in March.
“My office and our sheriff and our city police chief, we work very hard to ensure the Jewish community is safe,” he told JNS. “I’m very optimistic that we’re going to continue to keep it a safe community.”
“If we don’t remain vigilant and stay on top of it and integrate with our relationships with the Jewish community, we would be at risk of letting things cool off,” he said. “I want to make sure that the community knows that they’re supported.”
Dow, who is Christian, said that it was “really amazing” seeing biblical sites, as a person of faith who reads the Bible regularly.
“Looking at that evidence, those stones reveal that that land has belonged to the Jewish people for thousands and thousands of years,” he told JNS. “It was very humbling to be there, walk there where many have walked thousands of years ago.”
His visit to Israel with other district attorneys taught him about what he said is “the undeniable history,” and he saw “the thousands-of-years-old stones that build the Temple area” in Jerusalem’s Old City, which amazed him.
Nathan Hochman, district attorney of Los Angeles County, who led the delegation of which Dow was a part, also received an award.
“This day, these events every single year are incredibly important,” Hochman, who is Jewish, told JNS. “For no moment can we take the existence of the State of Israel for granted.”
“The fact that we’re able to celebrate 78 years from the founding of the State of Israel is nothing short of a miracle,” he said.
The consulate’s event “sends a tidal wave of love, love for the land of Israel, the State of Israel, to the entire world and to this county in particular, that whatever antisemites exist out there, they are going to be literally swamped over by this tidal wave of love for the land of Israel,” Hochman said.
The district attorney told JNS that “we are going to be unrelenting in prosecuting hate crimes,” including Jew-hatred and homophobia. Offenders will “get arrested, they’re going to get prosecuted and they’re going to get punished,” he said.
Henry Stern, a Democratic state senator in California, and Dafna Michaelson Jenet, who resigned from her position as a Democratic state senator in Colorado in February, also received awards at the event.
‘Face it head on’
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), who was one of the event speakers, told JNS that the celebration was “a chance to reflect on the alliance between the United States and Israel, the success that Israel’s had, starting with the desert and making it bloom, and to reflect on the difficulties that Israel faces.”
“Whether it’s the streets of London or Pico-Robertson, we face antisemitism. We’ve got to face it head on, and it starts with adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism,” the congressman said, of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of Jew-hatred.
Sherman told JNS that he doesn’t know what U.S. President Donald Trump’s strategy is in the war against the Iranian regime.
“He hasn’t shared it with Congress. He certainly hasn’t shared it with me,” he said. “The key thing is to disgorge the 900 pounds of enriched uranium. Right now, we are led to believe that it’s all underground from the bombing of Isfahan, but we don’t know.”
“As long as it’s on Iranian territory, they’re close to 10 bombs,” Sherman told JNS. “We’ve got to get that.”
Israel Bachar, Israeli consul general to the Pacific Southwest, told JNS that it was “remarkable to see the community come in time after time” and put time, effort and money in for the event.
The gathering showed the “beauty and the bond” between Israel and Jews who live outside of the Jewish state.
The only way to fight antisemitism is through “more Jewish education” and “more aggressive law enforcement,” he told JNS.
