Zoroaster
08-15-2004, 01:03 AM
http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-occupiedgovernments-usa-nj-gov-mcgreevey-cipal-scandal.html#jewsattackrutgersmeetingandcipel
Possible Reason Cipel and the Jews Toppled Gov. McGreevey?
Rutgers Controversy Is No Civil Liberties Issue
Posted 8/22/2003
By ALAN J. STEINBERG
On Friday evening, October 10, 2003, Jews throughout the world will celebrate the first night of the holiday of Succot. The festival is a commemoration of the harvest season in the land of Israel. Indeed, Judaism has often been described as having three principal components
— the people of Israel, the Torah (which is the holy law of the people of Israel), and the land of Israel. Succot is a holiday in which every Jew is most conscious of his or her connection with the eternal Jewish homeland.
For the Jewish students on the Rutgers campus, however, the first night of Succot will be a most somber evening. Nearby on the Douglass campus will be a national gathering of Israel haters who yearn for the destruction of the Jewish state — the National Student Movement for Solidarity with Palestine. This conference is being held with the authorization of the governor of New Jersey, James E. McGreevey, and the president of Rutgers, Richard McCormick. For the
Rutgers Jewish students, the night will be a frightening reminder that enemies of the Jewish people are alive and well on college campuses throughout the United States.
The McGreevey administration has defended its decision to permit the conference as a First Amendment freedom-of-speech issue. Such an argument turns the First Amendment on its head. The First Amendment does allow the Israel-haters of the Rutgers chapter of the Palestine Solidarity Movement to gather on campus and hold meetings of their chapter members, as long as the local chapter is funded solely by contributions of its members. I would even concur that the First Amendment would allow the Rutgers chapter of this Israel-hating organization to invite individual guest speakers from outside the campus to its membership meetings.
In no way, however, does the First Amendment enable the Rutgers Solidarity chapter to compel the university to open its campus doors to the entire nation for a mass gathering of Israel-hating students from outside the campus, particularly when such a conference will involve expenditure of taxpayer dollars and use of state resources.
The authorization of this conference will set an absolutely terrifying precedent for Rutgers, great state university, to become a national hate conference center. Suppose a group of Jew-hating and African-American hating Rutgers students convene and form a campus chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, funding activities with their own dollars. The chapter invites David Duke to speak to its members. Will the Rutgers Ku Klux Klan chapter then have the right to compel
Rutgers President McCormick and Gov. McGreevey to open the campus for a national student convention of the Ku Klux Klan?
McGreevey’s communications director, Kathleen Ellis, defended the decision on the basis that “it was important that the university be allowed to serve as a forum for ideas, even the most unpopular ones.” But one must ask: What benefit is there for Rutgers students seeking truth in the marketplace of ideas from a conference of an organization which denies Israel’s right to
exist and defends homicide bombing against Jews as a legitimate tactic?
The most appalling aspect of McGreevey’s decision was his absolute failure to announce any action on his part to counter the expected anti-Israel vitriol that will emerge from the Palestine Solidarity Conference. In this regard, I look back and take great pride in the actions of former governor Christie Whitman in 1994 when she was confronted with the decision of the then Trenton State College to invite Khalid Muhammad to speak on campus, thereby giving him a forum to express his reprehensible anti-Semitic ideology. Whitman immediately responded by announcing that members of her administration would host showings of the movie “Schindler’s List” throughout the state.
I served as a member of the Whitman administration, and I often acted on her behalf as a liaison with the New Jersey Jewish community. It was a role that gave me great pride and satisfaction. Christie Whitman was definitely a leader among state governors in terms of Holocaust education and trade and cultural exchanges with the State of Israel. She was honored by the Israel-based Orthodox Jewish outreach organization Aish HaTorah with its Friend of
Zion award in 1998 — and she truly was a friend. Israeli prime ministers such as Benjamin Netanyahu and the late Yitzhak Rabin eagerly sought meetings with her. She was a complete class act — and she will always have an honored place in the State of Israel and the New Jersey Jewish community.
Jim McGreevey will never have the stature in the Jewish community of a Christie
Whitman. He can, however, mitigate the damage his decision has caused by duplicating Christie Whitman’s Schindler’s List decision. Specifically, he should direct that leading members of his administration host showings throughout the state of the movie “Relentless: The Struggle for Peace in Israel.”
As described by the pro-Israel website HonestReporting.com, “Relentless” is a
powerful one-hour documentary using primary source video clips to examine the history of the Mideast conflict and how the “peace process” unraveled in a surge of Palestinian violence.
There is one other action that Jim McGreevey should take as well.
This is a time in history when, more than ever, our nation’s leaders at all levels are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the people of Israel. President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have forged the closest alliance between an American president and an Israeli prime minister in our nation’s history. In the U.S. House of Representatives, Republicans such as Tom Delay and Democrats such as New Jersey’s Rob Andrews have demonstrated the deepest personal and governmental commitment to the Jewish state.
New Jersey State Senate Co-President John Bennett (R-Monmouth) has also been
a longtime close friend of Israel and the New Jersey Jewish community. He has been honored as a B’nai B’rith Man of the Year, and he sponsored the legislation to commemorate Kristallnacht every year by having the lights in the Statehouse kept on. When he announced his opposition to the Palestine Solidarity Conference, he was acting in accordance with his deep and longtime commitment to the State of Israel and the New Jersey Jewish community. Unfortunately, his
action resulted in a smear of his character by his Democrat opponent this year in the 12th District Senate race, Ellen Karcher, who charged in the New Jersey Jewish News that Bennett’s courageous stand was more of a “political than a moral gesture.”
I can understand why Ms. Karcher would refuse to join Senator Bennett in opposing the hosting by Rutgers of the Palestine Solidarity Conference, given her political allegiance to Jim McGreevey. In the process of refusing to join with Senator Bennett, however, does she have to practice McCarthyism of the Left by slandering his character as well? It is incumbent upon McGreevey to act in the pro-Israel bipartisan tradition of Democrat Rob Andrews by calling upon Ms. Karcher to apologize for her unwarranted defamation of a true friend of the New Jersey Jewish community.
One-fourth of my extended family lived in Poland during the Holocaust. A large number of them were murdered. Other members of my family found refuge after the Holocaust in the State of Israel. Ms. Karcher, had there been more friends of the American Jewish community like John Bennett in positions of elected authority at the time of the Holocaust, perhaps our nation would have done much more to provide a haven for Jews attempting to escape the hells of Hitler’s Europe. (PoliticsNJ.com)
Alan J. Steinberg, a New Jersey state government veteran, is the author of the book “American Jewry and Conservative Politics: A New Tradition.”
Possible Reason Cipel and the Jews Toppled Gov. McGreevey?
Rutgers Controversy Is No Civil Liberties Issue
Posted 8/22/2003
By ALAN J. STEINBERG
On Friday evening, October 10, 2003, Jews throughout the world will celebrate the first night of the holiday of Succot. The festival is a commemoration of the harvest season in the land of Israel. Indeed, Judaism has often been described as having three principal components
— the people of Israel, the Torah (which is the holy law of the people of Israel), and the land of Israel. Succot is a holiday in which every Jew is most conscious of his or her connection with the eternal Jewish homeland.
For the Jewish students on the Rutgers campus, however, the first night of Succot will be a most somber evening. Nearby on the Douglass campus will be a national gathering of Israel haters who yearn for the destruction of the Jewish state — the National Student Movement for Solidarity with Palestine. This conference is being held with the authorization of the governor of New Jersey, James E. McGreevey, and the president of Rutgers, Richard McCormick. For the
Rutgers Jewish students, the night will be a frightening reminder that enemies of the Jewish people are alive and well on college campuses throughout the United States.
The McGreevey administration has defended its decision to permit the conference as a First Amendment freedom-of-speech issue. Such an argument turns the First Amendment on its head. The First Amendment does allow the Israel-haters of the Rutgers chapter of the Palestine Solidarity Movement to gather on campus and hold meetings of their chapter members, as long as the local chapter is funded solely by contributions of its members. I would even concur that the First Amendment would allow the Rutgers chapter of this Israel-hating organization to invite individual guest speakers from outside the campus to its membership meetings.
In no way, however, does the First Amendment enable the Rutgers Solidarity chapter to compel the university to open its campus doors to the entire nation for a mass gathering of Israel-hating students from outside the campus, particularly when such a conference will involve expenditure of taxpayer dollars and use of state resources.
The authorization of this conference will set an absolutely terrifying precedent for Rutgers, great state university, to become a national hate conference center. Suppose a group of Jew-hating and African-American hating Rutgers students convene and form a campus chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, funding activities with their own dollars. The chapter invites David Duke to speak to its members. Will the Rutgers Ku Klux Klan chapter then have the right to compel
Rutgers President McCormick and Gov. McGreevey to open the campus for a national student convention of the Ku Klux Klan?
McGreevey’s communications director, Kathleen Ellis, defended the decision on the basis that “it was important that the university be allowed to serve as a forum for ideas, even the most unpopular ones.” But one must ask: What benefit is there for Rutgers students seeking truth in the marketplace of ideas from a conference of an organization which denies Israel’s right to
exist and defends homicide bombing against Jews as a legitimate tactic?
The most appalling aspect of McGreevey’s decision was his absolute failure to announce any action on his part to counter the expected anti-Israel vitriol that will emerge from the Palestine Solidarity Conference. In this regard, I look back and take great pride in the actions of former governor Christie Whitman in 1994 when she was confronted with the decision of the then Trenton State College to invite Khalid Muhammad to speak on campus, thereby giving him a forum to express his reprehensible anti-Semitic ideology. Whitman immediately responded by announcing that members of her administration would host showings of the movie “Schindler’s List” throughout the state.
I served as a member of the Whitman administration, and I often acted on her behalf as a liaison with the New Jersey Jewish community. It was a role that gave me great pride and satisfaction. Christie Whitman was definitely a leader among state governors in terms of Holocaust education and trade and cultural exchanges with the State of Israel. She was honored by the Israel-based Orthodox Jewish outreach organization Aish HaTorah with its Friend of
Zion award in 1998 — and she truly was a friend. Israeli prime ministers such as Benjamin Netanyahu and the late Yitzhak Rabin eagerly sought meetings with her. She was a complete class act — and she will always have an honored place in the State of Israel and the New Jersey Jewish community.
Jim McGreevey will never have the stature in the Jewish community of a Christie
Whitman. He can, however, mitigate the damage his decision has caused by duplicating Christie Whitman’s Schindler’s List decision. Specifically, he should direct that leading members of his administration host showings throughout the state of the movie “Relentless: The Struggle for Peace in Israel.”
As described by the pro-Israel website HonestReporting.com, “Relentless” is a
powerful one-hour documentary using primary source video clips to examine the history of the Mideast conflict and how the “peace process” unraveled in a surge of Palestinian violence.
There is one other action that Jim McGreevey should take as well.
This is a time in history when, more than ever, our nation’s leaders at all levels are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the people of Israel. President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have forged the closest alliance between an American president and an Israeli prime minister in our nation’s history. In the U.S. House of Representatives, Republicans such as Tom Delay and Democrats such as New Jersey’s Rob Andrews have demonstrated the deepest personal and governmental commitment to the Jewish state.
New Jersey State Senate Co-President John Bennett (R-Monmouth) has also been
a longtime close friend of Israel and the New Jersey Jewish community. He has been honored as a B’nai B’rith Man of the Year, and he sponsored the legislation to commemorate Kristallnacht every year by having the lights in the Statehouse kept on. When he announced his opposition to the Palestine Solidarity Conference, he was acting in accordance with his deep and longtime commitment to the State of Israel and the New Jersey Jewish community. Unfortunately, his
action resulted in a smear of his character by his Democrat opponent this year in the 12th District Senate race, Ellen Karcher, who charged in the New Jersey Jewish News that Bennett’s courageous stand was more of a “political than a moral gesture.”
I can understand why Ms. Karcher would refuse to join Senator Bennett in opposing the hosting by Rutgers of the Palestine Solidarity Conference, given her political allegiance to Jim McGreevey. In the process of refusing to join with Senator Bennett, however, does she have to practice McCarthyism of the Left by slandering his character as well? It is incumbent upon McGreevey to act in the pro-Israel bipartisan tradition of Democrat Rob Andrews by calling upon Ms. Karcher to apologize for her unwarranted defamation of a true friend of the New Jersey Jewish community.
One-fourth of my extended family lived in Poland during the Holocaust. A large number of them were murdered. Other members of my family found refuge after the Holocaust in the State of Israel. Ms. Karcher, had there been more friends of the American Jewish community like John Bennett in positions of elected authority at the time of the Holocaust, perhaps our nation would have done much more to provide a haven for Jews attempting to escape the hells of Hitler’s Europe. (PoliticsNJ.com)
Alan J. Steinberg, a New Jersey state government veteran, is the author of the book “American Jewry and Conservative Politics: A New Tradition.”