SAN FRANCISCO – A former congressman and longtime critic of America’s alliance with Israel is hoping voter anger over bribery and ethical breaches in Washington will help him unseat a powerful committee chairman in a Republican primary in California next week.

Paul McCloskey Jr., 78, known as “Pete,” is challenging Richard Pombo, 45, who has spent seven terms in Congress and presides over the panel that oversees energy and public land issues, the House Resources Committee.

In an interview with The New York Sun yesterday, Mr. McCloskey, who served in Congress between 1967 and 1983 and was among the first to call for the impeachment of President Nixon, said he decided to run again because of his sense of an ethical decline among Republican leaders.

“After 12 years in power, I think they’ve been corrupted,” he said. “They’ve done precisely what the Democrats have done during their period in power.”

Mr. McCloskey said Mr. Pombo was closely connected with prominent figures in the unfolding influence-peddling investigation, including a prominent Republican lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, and two former House staffers, Neil Volz and Tony Rudy.

“The three men who have pleaded guilty, Neil Volz, Tony Rudy, and Abramoff, have all testified they gave money to Pombo,” the former congressman said. “As this thing broadens out, I think he ought to explain. He won’t come on a radio or television program with me and answer these questions.”

Mr. Pombo has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with any crime.

It’s unclear to what extent his actions are under scrutiny by prosecutors, though a newspaper in the Northern Mariana Islands has reported that the Justice Department subpoenaed some e-mails relating to Mr. Pombo.

Mr. McCloskey didn’t level any specific ethical allegation at Mr. Pombo, but warned ominously that legal developments might take the congressman out of the running. “If the investigation proceeds and draws him in, he could be defeated before November,” Mr. McCloskey said.

The two candidates are also at odds on a variety of issues, including the environment. Mr. McCloskey helped write the Endangered Species Act. Mr. Pombo, who describes himself as “the House’s foremost champion of private property rights,” regularly criticizes the law as ineffective at protecting species and detrimental to economic development.

The White House has given strong backing to Mr. Pombo. Vice President Cheney attended a fund-raiser for the congressman last week that raised more than $200,000.

Mr. McCloskey is staunchly opposed to the neoconservative thinking that he blames for President Bush’s decision to send troops to Iraq. “It’s a dangerous viewpoint. It’s almost imperialism,” he said.

While some press accounts of the race have drawn parallels between Mr. McCloskey’s vocal opposition to the Vietnam War and his outspoken criticism of the war in Iraq, news coverage of the current contest has made almost no mention of the ex-congressman’s long history of clashes with Jewish groups.

Mr. McCloskey is a co-founder of a group aimed at revamping America’s “collusive relationship” with Israel, the Council for the National Interest. The group recently took out an ad in the New York Times promoting an academic paper in which professors at Harvard and the University of Chicago claimed that a pro-Israel lobby has a stranglehold on American foreign policy.

In 2000, Mr. McCloskey spoke at a conference organized by the leading Holocaust denial organization in America, the Institute for Historical Review.

“I came because I respect the thesis of this organization – the thesis being that there should be a reexamination of whatever governments say or politicians say or political entities say,” he told the group, according to its Web site. “The Jewish community has the power to suppress, either by advertising or control of the media, news reports that are hostile to Israel…The Jewish community is dedicated to preserve that state, and to destroy those who speak against it.”

Since leaving Congress, Mr. McCloskey has also brought a series of lawsuits against the Anti-Defamation League. One alleged that the group was illegally spying on its opponents. The case was settled without an admission of wrongdoing. Another, later dismissed, claimed that the league libeled the superintendent of an Islamic charter school by linking her to an anti-Semitic extremist group.

Mr. McCloskey said efforts to label him as a bigot are unfounded. “There’s been a lot of attempts to suppress debate by use of the word, anti-Semitic,” he said. “I don’t believe Israel is the 51st state, yet I think we’ve brought an undue hostility into the world against us.”

Mr. McCloskey said it was unfair to paint him as a Holocaust denier simply because he spoke to a group that included some who question the Holocaust. “Somehow the speaker takes on the characterization of the audience? I’ve never believed in that,” he said. “I told them I disagreed with them. I wrote them a letter and told them to get off the anti-Holocaust kick.”

A Republican campaign consultant, Allan Hoffenblum, said the ethics scandal may leave Mr. Pombo vulnerable to a Democrat, but he is unlikely to be defeated by Mr. McCloskey. “He’s not in there to win. There’s no way he’s going to win,” the consultant said.

Mr. Hoffenblum, who mentioned that he is Jewish, said a primary victory by Mr. McCloskey would bring a flood of pro-Israel money into the race. “If Pete McCloskey got the nomination, the Jewish community would spend a fortune to make sure he did not get elected,” he said.

An adviser to Mr. Pombo, Wayne Johnson, said the incumbent congressman is confident he’ll beat Mr. McCloskey in the 11th district, which stretches from California’s central valley to the eastern suburbs of Oakland and San Jose. “He’s going to lose,” Mr. Johnson said of the challenger.

Mr. Johnson said Mr. Pombo has declined to debate Mr. McCloskey because almost all his financial support has come from donors to Senator Kerry or to the chairman of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean.

Mr. Pombo’s adviser faulted newspapers such as the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, and the Sacramento Bee for endorsing Mr. McCloskey without mentioning his anti-Israel statements. “Some of his ideas are outside the mainstream of the Republican Party, but some of his ideas are outside the mainstream of American society,” Mr. Johnson said.

Mr. Pombo faces one other Republican challenger, a retired businessman, Thomas Benigno. Three Democrats are vying to take the seat in November: an airline pilot, Steve Filson; a renewable energy proponent, Jerry McNerney, and an electrician, Steve Thomas.