NJ governor says Israel trip will pay off for state

TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Wednesday that his visit to Israel, where he has met this week with the nation’s top leaders, will help strengthen diplomatic ties and drum up business back home.

The Republican said he’s confident his talks with Israeli business and political leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres will pay off for New Jersey.

“I think we’ll see a lot come out of it from an economic perspective and a diplomatic perspective,” Christie said Wednesday from the Sea of Galilee during a conference call with reporters to summarize the trip so far.

Christie has had an exhaustive schedule of meetings, sightseeing and tours since landing in Israel on Monday. His itinerary has included visits with Netanyahu on Monday, Peres on Tuesday and US Ambassador David Shapiro on Wednesday.

With the trip being billed primarily as a trade mission, Christie has devoted a portion of his daily schedule to promoting business opportunities in New Jersey.

He toured a drug company interested in expanding in New Jersey, then signed a letter of cooperation with the firm Teva Pharmaceuticals to continue the talks. In Jerusalem, he visited an electric car maker whose no. 2 executive lives half the time in New Jersey. He also discussed economic opportunities with Shapiro and the Israeli leaders.

Christie, a Catholic, said the trip has been eye-opening in other ways. He said he’s gained a better understanding of what he called Israel’s “extraordinary security challenges” and said it’s been a moving experience to visit the birthplace of his faith during Holy Week, the days leading up to Easter.

He said his children have occasionally become wide-eyed during the trip upon seeing ancient places they’d heard or read about.

Christie brushed aside speculation that the trip was undertaken to burnish his credentials in a quest for national office, and the heavyset governor dismissed as “unfortunate” a newspaper headline mocking his weight in a photo taken at Jerusalem’s Western Wall.

By visiting Israel, Christie is continuing a gubernatorial tradition started in the 1980s by then-Gov. Thomas Kean, who attended at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial the dedication of the eternal flame to his father, who spoke out against Nazi atrocities on the floor of the US Congress in the 1940s.

While at least one prior governor, Christie Whitman, is said to have taken along a delegation of more than 50 people, Christie said he intentionally kept the number to 13 business and religious leaders.

“We really wanted these meetings to be intimate and useful,” he said. “I wasn’t looking to put on a show of force here.”

Christie and his family head to the Golan Heights on Thursday before traveling to Jordan to meet with King Abdullah II. The Christies are due back in the United States on Sunday.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.