{"id":435992,"date":"2021-12-16T17:38:18","date_gmt":"2021-12-16T17:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=380987"},"modified":"2021-12-16T17:38:18","modified_gmt":"2021-12-16T17:38:18","slug":"josh-gottheimers-wild-claims-in-rutgers-speech-are-falling-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/12\/16\/josh-gottheimers-wild-claims-in-rutgers-speech-are-falling-apart\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Gottheimer\u2019s Wild Claims in Rutgers Speech Are Falling Apart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rep. Josh Gottheimer,<\/u> a New Jersey Democrat, attacked the organization founded by Jamal Khashoggi on Monday as linked to Al Qaeda, echoing allegations that Saudi officials have leveled to muddy the waters around the state-sanctioned butchering of the Washington Post journalist.<\/p>\n

In a speech at Rutgers University, Gottheimer criticized the\u00a0school for hosting Khashoggi\u2019s organization for an event. \u201cAt another event, the same group hosted Democracy for the Arab World Now, DAWN, whose officials have connections to Al Qaeda and Hamas networks,\u201d Gottheimer said<\/a>. \u201cHamas sympathizers, or others with ties to other terrorist organizations involved in 9\/11, have no place on college campuses. Associates of Palestinian Islamic jihad have no place on this college campus. I know we all believe that hate has no home here. It\u2019s time we all practice what we preach.\u201d<\/p>\n

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During his speech, Gottheimer also claimed that at an earlier protest organized by the Working Families Party,\u00a0somebody had shouted<\/a> \u201cJew!\u201d at him. \u201cNot long ago, I held an event in my district to talk about the benefits of the bipartisan federal infrastructure bill, only to have members of the Working Families Party disrupt the event by screaming ‘Jew\u2019 at me,\u201d he said. While he did not specify which event he was referring to, representatives from\u00a0the\u00a0Working Families Party say they only showed up at one, on September 20.<\/p>\n

A review of video<\/a> of the event provided by\u00a0the\u00a0Working Families Party suggests that Gottheimer is either lying or appears to have misheard the protesters. As he left an event out a back door, protesters urged him to engage in one of his regular constituent events that he calls \u201cCup of Joe with Josh,\u201d in lieu of town halls that his constituents have demanded. \u201cThis is your Cup of Joe, Josh. This is your Cup of Joe,\u201d yelled Lisa Schwartz of Teaneck, New Jersey. At the time of the protest, Gottheimer was under intense pressure at home and in Washington to get behind Biden\u2019s Build Back Better Act.<\/p>\n

“That\u2019s the only time we saw him, and it was so ridiculous, he avoided us like the plague,” Schwartz, a retired social worker, told The Intercept.\u00a0“We just wanted five minutes of his time.”<\/p>\n

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“What an outrageous allegation. I’m someone who’s Jewish.\u00a0If I’d have heard that, I’d have been outraged and would have left right away, and so would most people there. He’s playing the antisemitism card, and it’s vindictive. I can tell you for certain, nothing like that was shouted,” she said. In a statement provided by the Working Families Party, Schwartz added: \u201cAt no time during this rally was Rep. Gottheimer called \u2018a Jew\u2019 as he falsely alleges.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Gottheimer was speaking on the topic of antisemitism, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.,\u00a0was pursuing a resolution condemning anti-Muslim racism. On Tuesday, Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn., accused Omar of being \u201caffiliated\u201d with \u201cterrorist organizations\u201d while the House debated\u00a0her bill.\u00a0The bill passed, and his words were deemed out of order by the House parliamentarian and\u00a0struck from the congressional record. Gottheimer was speaking at Rutgers University, not on the House floor, and his remarks are posted on his congressional website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

The claims by Perry and Gottheimer that Omar and Khashoggi have links to terrorist organizations were offered without evidence, though both are likely referring to connections to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, a prominent advocacy group in Washington that is routinely criticized by Saudi Arabia and its allies for having ties to terror networks. Perry had previously introduced an amendment<\/a> to Omar\u2019s legislation punishing CAIR, and Khashoggi\u2019s group has links to people with\u00a0ties to CAIR.<\/p>\n

Nebulous terms like \u201cnetworks\u201d and \u201clinks\u201d make it easy to claim connections between\u00a0Middle East\u00a0figures and terrorist groups while simultaneously draining these claims of meaning. That task was made easier in the wake of 9\/11, when the FBI designated countless Islamic charities as potential fronts for financing terror groups, meaning that anybody connected with those charities in any way could then be said to have \u201clinks\u201d to Al Qaeda. (The irony, of course, is that Saudi Arabia itself has actual links to the 9\/11 attacks and is the subject of ongoing litigation as a result.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are Saudi talking points.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThese are Saudi talking points,\u201d said Michael Eisner, general counsel for DAWN. \u201cDAWN staff and DAWN board members represent a diverse group of people from different races, faiths, religions, and nationalities. Several DAWN staff members are political exiles, including former political prisoners and victims of torture. That these individuals now face some of the same tactics from the authoritarian governments that forced them to flee their home countries is deeply unsettling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khashoggi founded DAWN in 2018 before he was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The group advocates for democratic reforms in the Middle East and has been heavily critical of Saudi Arabia under the rule of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Multiple intelligence services\u00a0\u2014 including the Turkish, U.S., and British agencies \u2014 have concluded that\u00a0the crown prince was responsible for the killing of Khashoggi.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese accusations are false, baseless, and derive from Islamophobic, racist, and anti-Muslim tropes that have no place in the United States and in U.S. political discourse,\u201d said Eisner.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, praised the talk as an \u201cimportant speech\u201d on the \u201crise of antisemitic rhetoric and the need for leaders to better support Jewish communities.\u201d It was unclear if Greenblatt had noticed Gottheimer\u2019s charge against Khashoggi\u2019s organization.<\/p>\n


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Important speech from @RepJoshG<\/a> at @RutgersU<\/a> on rise of #antisemitic<\/a> rhetoric and the need for leaders to better support Jewish communities: "If we stand together, support one another against hatred, I believe that our best days will always, always be ahead of us." https:\/\/t.co\/22YTyKI8jZ<\/a><\/p>\n

— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) December 14, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n