Staff Writer

Donna Edwards believes that the Iraq war distracted the U.S. from helping to pursue Israeli-Palestinian peace, and she hopes a new presidential administration will make the issue a priority.

"The focus [on Iraq] has really taken our eyes off where the principal focus should have been, the Israeli-Palestinian question, given the connection to the stability in the region," said the Democratic congressional candidate in Maryland's Fourth District. "I think that's been an unfortunate loss over the last several years."

Asked if she views the Israeli-Palestinian issue as the major obstacle to peace in the Middle East, she said that solving that "puts us on a pathway to engaging in the region in a way that's a lot more helpful, but we can't rule out the importance and necessity in trying to deal directly with Iran ... [and] Syria."

Edwards is battling eight-term incumbent Rep. Albert Wynn for the Democratic nomination in the overwhelmingly Democratic district. Wynn has a consistent record of support for the Jewish state, and Jewish activists say he always has been accessible and responsive to their concerns. Edwards, however, had not addressed such issues in depth until a 25-minute interview on Thursday of last week in her Montgomery County campaign office.

Edwards lamented that both the Clinton and Bush administrations waited until the end of their terms to concentrate on Israeli-Palestinian peace.

"I can't stress enough this notion of ongoing, concerted leadership ... from the beginning in an administration," she said. "I feel we lose so much by just waiting until the waning days of the administration, when it becomes about political legacy and not ... about implementation," she said.

Edwards was joined during last week's interview by Daniel Levy, a special adviser in the Prime Minister's Office during the Ehud Barak government. Levy, to whom Edwards introduced a reporter as a "friend" and who spoke only briefly during the interview, was also a top adviser to former Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative. He is a senior fellow at both the Century Foundation and the New America Foundation.

Asked about concerns of some Jewish groups that she has not been responsive to their outreach requests during the campaign, Edwards promised to be "accessible" if elected. Her willingness to do an interview with WJW about Israel-related issues demonstrates that commitment, she added. The meeting was scheduled, however, only after weekly interview requests were unsuccessful, and the campaign had learned that WJW was preparing to write about her unresponsiveness. Edwards personally called WJW to schedule an interview after an editorial urging her to answer questions related to Israel already had gone to press.

She said she hadn't addressed the Middle East ‹ outside of the Iraq war ‹ during the campaign because such questions "rarely come up" in her travels through Fourth District, which includes a large chunk of Prince George's County and snakes through portions of Montgomery County including Rockville, Olney, Silver Spring and Clarksburg.

While noting that she has "some knowledge of these issues, I don't profess to be a big expert," Edwards said.

"One of the requests I had [from a Jewish organization] was a full-blown position paper [on Israel]," she said. "I'm also really thoughtful, and I wasn't in a position to sit down and write" such a document. She said that her campaign does have such a paper on foreclosures, but that's because the topic comes up in every meeting she has with voters.

Wynn, meanwhile, has been a reliable vote for the U.S.'s annual aid package to Israel, supported the Syria Accountability Act and frequently has signed his name to letters of particular interest to the pro-Israel community ‹ from one urging Palestinian compliance with the "road map" to another urging Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to condemn an anti-Semitic television program broadcast in his country.

In 2005, he phoned Egypt's ambassador and asked him to urge his country to issue a condemnation of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmandinejad's statement that "Israel must be wiped off the map."

In a phone interview on Monday, Wynn said pressing Arab states to "take a stand" against anti-Semitism is "very important" to creating an environment for peace.

Wynn supports Bush's engagement in the process in recent months, but agrees with Edwards that it is "unfortunate" the president waited "so long to engage." He said humanitarian aid to the Palestinians was important so that the U.S. is "looked upon as a friend," but added that safeguards to ensure that the aid gets to those who need it are essential.

Wynn ‹ who noted that he has visited the Jewish state twice, including a trip about a year and a half ago ‹ backed a joint U.S.-Israel energy project that has been proposed in the House and said that he'd like to work on more cultural exchanges with Israel, particularly with the African American community here.

He received some criticism in 2004 for voting against a resolution that denounced the International Court of Justice's negative ruling on Israel's security fence. At the time, Wynn said in an interview that he thought it was "a bad idea to criticize international institutions at a time when Israel and the United States are trying to obtain greater international support."

As for Edwards, she pledged to support the annual foreign aid package to the Jewish state, noting that the U.S. and Israel had recently negotiated a 10-year aid agreement and that she had no intention of "upsetting the apple cart." She said that should be coupled with "aid for human needs" for the Palestinians and backs controls to ensure the funds are used for their intended purpose.

"There always has to be levels of accountability, making sure we know where [aid is] going," she said.

A backer of a two-state solution, Edwards also said she was committed to Israel as a "Jewish, democratic state" and rejected the idea of a Palestinian "right of return" to Israel proper. She cited a December speech before the Israel Policy Forum by Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon, which made similar points, as reflecting her feelings on the issue.

Edwards also said she would not favor formal negotiations with Hamas until the group has renounced terrorism and violence.