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The McGreevey Scandal - an Israeli Connection
(Wayne Madsen, Counterpunch, August 14/15, 2004)
New Jersey Democratic Governor Jim McGreevey's announcement on August 12 that he was resigning because of his involvement in a gay relationship with an Israeli national may be the tip of an iceberg that represents another high-level Israeli attempt to burrow into the most sensitive areas of U.S. national security and our political process. . . . The ties between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Russian-mafia infused government and shadowy Israeli and Eastern European ex-intelligence agents are beyond a doubt, according to international law enforcement officials. But what is not readily apparent is the fact that a number of Israeli off-the-books intelligence operatives are active inside the United States and they do not have U.S. national interests in mind. . . . The fact that White House chief dirty tricks operator Karl Rove has close connections to the political spin machine run out of Sharon's Jerusalem office is also a concern when it comes to Israeli-connected dirty tricks operations being run against Democratic politicians in the United States. . . . Mayor McGreevey joined a large delegation of New Jersey Jewish supporters in a political "mega pilgrimage" to Israel, where he met Golan Cipel, said to be a tour guide/information officer for the mayor of the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Le-Zion, the first Zionist settlement in Palestine. However, Cipel had previously been the press secretary for the Israeli consulate general in New York City. In 1999, Cipel, who is now being described as a one-time low-level Israeli government employee in New York and a "poet," gave a speech on behalf of the Israeli government at a meeting at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Madison Avenue offices on some very high profile issues, including the implications of the recent death of King Hussein of Jordan, the upcoming Israeli elections, and the peace process with the Palestinian Authority. . . . Cipel was also a former Israeli naval officer, leaving the service with the rank of lieutenant. How a person goes from an influential position with one of the most important Israeli diplomatic missions abroad to a mere Jerusalem area tour guide seems, on the surface, extraordinary. But in the world of intelligence, such career changes are driven by political necessity, not by choice. McGreevey's admitted lifelong homosexuality also made him a likely target for an intelligence approach--and Cipel, who, as a 1998 graduate of the New York Institute of Technology and the New York Israeli consulate's press spokesman, was more than familiar with north Jersey's political and social terrain. . . . There may be good reasons why the neo-conservatives want to play down Cipel's Israeli roots--McGreevey may have been set up in an attempt to ruin him and influence the upcoming U.S. presidential election. When foreign nations are found to be influencing American politics, there is an almost uniform tendency for the American people to react negatively to such meddling. One must merely recall the wailing and crying raised over alleged Chinese political contributions to Democrats and Republicans during the Clinton administration. . . . New Jersey was considered a swing state by the Bush campaign early in the campaign cycle. As John Kerry leaped to a double-digit lead over Bush in the Garden State, the rumors surrounding McGreevey and Kushner were unleashed. Now, with the Governor announcing his resignation amid a gay sex scandal, one is instinctively forced into suspecting the involvement of chief Bush dirty tricks operator Karl Rove in the affair. Rove is attracted to such sordid affairs as a fly is attracted to a pile of horse manure. . . . Republicans in New Jersey are not happy that McGreevey is not resigning until November 15, which means a special election will for New Jersey's governor will not be held on November 2, the same date of the presidential election. It certainly would have been a Rovian tactic to make McGreevey's sexual orientation a campaign issue in order to get out the conservative vote on Election Day in a gambit to increase the right-wing fundamentalist voter turnout for George Bush and appeal to anti-gay conservative Democrats in the state while also hoping to get a Republican into the governor's seat in Trenton. . . . Republicans do not seem satisfied with the normal electoral process but seek ways to upend it. . . . While McGreevey deserves condemnation for allowing his relationship with a foreign national gay partner to influence his decisions and cloud his judgment on important matters dealing with the security of New Jersey during a time of increasing terror threats, he should also be praised for not succumbing to Republican pressure to resign immediately and permit the Karl Rove dirty trick machine to use this tragedy for the McGreevey family to influence in what column New Jersey's 15 electoral votes land in November.

posted by LoZo 3:28 PM