"As a candidate for the Senate, I believe she has an obligation to speak out against such a policy," Flatow said in a statement.

Flatow's daughter, Alisa, 20, was killed in the April 1995 bus bombing in the Gaza Strip by Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group sponsored by Iran.

Flatow, of West Orange, N.J., used the 1996 Anti-terrorism Act to sue Iran, and in March 1998 was awarded $247.5 million by a federal court in Washington. However, the State Department, citing U.S. interests, has blocked Flatow's efforts to seize Iranian assets in the United States.

Last week, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee that his use of a federal law to seek justice for his daughter "has come to be seen as an attack on the foreign policy of the U.S."

Legislation has been introduced in Congress that would allow victims of terrorism who prevail in court to recover the seized assets in the United States that belong to outlaw states, preventing the president from blocking the seizures.

Allied with Flatow are three families who sued and won a judgment of $187 million against Cuba, which in 1996 shot down two unarmed planes of Brothers to the Rescue.

That exile group was patrolling the ocean off southern Florida, looking for Cubans fleeing their homeland.

Like the Jews, Hispanics are a significant constituency in New York, constituting 6 percent of voters.