Help Wanted: NJ Gubernatorial Candidate to Protect Free Speech Rights of Palestine Advocates
New Jersey is facing a major crisis with both lead political parties legislating and advocating for a crackdown on 10’s of 1000s of NJ voters, citizens, residents and visitors who oppose US policy supporting Israel due to absolute disregard for humanity.
It seems like the NJ media is largely oblivious to the breadth and the impact this crisis could have on the state of NJ. There might be this idea that most NJ-ans either support US policy toward Israel or are indifferent to it. While those suggestions would need to be studied – even if the number of those in NJ who are committed to opposing genocide is in the 10s of 1000s – maybe even 100s of 1000s – and even if that number of people is a fraction of NJ’s entire population – a crack down on that sizable sector of NJ’s public will create an overwhelming crisis for the state of NJ.
There has been relentless repression of anti-genocide, pro-Palestine, Israel critical advocacy since October 7 2023. The repression here in the US of pro-Palestine sentiment did not start in 2023 – it has persisted for decades – but it certainly has been turned into an overdrive fury since that date.
There has been from the pro-Israel sector – including from well funded advocacy organizations demands of intolerance of any questioning of Israel policies and US support for those policies. They demand that it is necessary for a zero tolerance toward pro-Palestine sentiment for them to feel “comfortable”. The idea is that they can not reach a comfort level with the possibility that we might be thinking and expressing opinions that contradict an “Anything and Everything for Israel” ideology.
The pressure for this zero tolerance of Pro-Palestine thought and expression is applied toward elected officials and candidates for legislative office through a myriad of pro-Israel lobbying agencies – the most infamous of which is AIPAC. These lobbying groups literally buy support from candidates of both the Republican and Democratic parties through millions in direct campaign contributions to campaign coffers of the so beholden candidates and officials.
Accordingly in NJ there are two laws that have been voted out of NJ Senate Committee in June of 2024 that fraudulently conflate opposition to support for Israel with “anti-Semitism” based on a fraudulent construct known as IHRA. In typical bipartisan unity with Trump Republicans on issues regarding Israel, the two fascist laws S1292 and S2937 could soon be taken up by the full NJ Senate floor due to the NJ Democrats lead on these fascist measures.
While most of the Democratic Party gubernatorial candidates have been completely (and suspiciously) silent on these measures, as has Governor Murphy, candidate Josh Gottheimer has made as a central platform of his campaign that he will call the cops on the pro-Palestine NJ constituents – he wants to use full legal and police force against our protected free speech rights.
Gottheimer made these statements at a launch of his campaign and he was quoted accordingly on November 18. None of the other candidates have come forward to challenge him on this topic. By default they have yielded the floor to Gottheimer on this issue and until they find their words to say otherwise, we can only assume that they 100% support a police and legal crackdown against NJ’s pro-Palestine Solidarity advocates.
It would be refreshing to see one or more of the other candidates to step forward and to articulate how they dissent from Gottheimer’s call for repressive action against 1000s of NJ residents, citizens, voters and visitors!
Any attempt to move against the advocates of Palestine using police and legal means as Democrat candidate Gottheimer proclaims will be opposed by us advocates. This editor will do whatever it is in my power to agitate, amplify, elevate and support a concerted statewide effort that also reaches out to all of the other constituent movements representing oppressed communities in opposition to such fascist measures. An attempt to crackdown will likely spur on more participation – as advocates of Palestine have proven absolute resiliency to relentless smear and legal and phystical repression across the US and around the world. This will be true too in NJ – the attempts to silent us will lead to ugly events and state violence is likely as authoritarians like Gottheimer order the fascist charge against our protected speech rights. Such a crackdown will cause massive turmoil and upheaval – we will not go silently!
A candidate is needed with a clear pro-Palestine perspective who supports and defends the protected free speech rights of NJ’s pro-Palestine constituents. If there is none in the Democratic Party who will act immediately to proclaim support for protecting our First Amendment rights, it behooves our efforts to find someone from within our ranks to clearly delineate the defense of free speech as a central plank for a Gubernatorial challenge in 2025.
With haste step forward now – and be at the forefront of a historic show down in NJ with free speech in the balance in 2025.
