Local Jewish leaders, upset with Mayor Cynthia Mathews for giving the Palestinian ambassador a key to the city last month, want the mayor to publicly apologize for the symbolic gesture. Mathews said she has no plans to do so.Mathews introduced Palestinian Ambassador Afif Safieh to an audience at the Veterans Memorial Building, and said Tuesday that the city key was part of “a ceremonial welcome.” At the time she called it a rare honor.

Safieh, invited by the Resource Center for Nonviolence, spoke in Santa Cruz about failed diplomacy in the Middle East and laced his speech with remarks such as “Hezbollah is an amateur in terrorism compared with Israel,” a quote repeated in a Sentinel article after the event.

“I was disturbed that the ambassador was quoted in the Sentinel as saying that Hezbollah were minor terrorists compared to Israel while Hezbollah was launching thousands of rockets purposely against civilian targets in Israel,” Rabbi Rick Litvak of Temple Beth El said Tuesday. “With statements like this, I felt this was not the kind of person we should be honoring.”

Litvak and other Jewish leaders � Ilan Benjamin, Becky Johnson, Gil Stein and Susan Karon � met with Mathews Aug. 16 at City Hall to express their disappointment and seek an apology.

SCS