Excerpt:
The election has been marred with ugly undertones of anti-Semitism: one candidate accuses the other of being more loyal to Israel than to his own land, and anchors his candidacy in ethnic and religious identity politics. Observers fear that by making his anti-Israel stance the lynchpin of his campaign, the candidate is setting a precedent that could have severe negative consequences in the near future.
All this sounds as if it could be taking place in Egypt, where Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi has signaled that he wants to review, if not discard outright, that nation's peace treaty with Israel, and has taken such a hardline anti-Israel stance that his secular opponent, Ahmed Shafiq, has accused the Brotherhood of acting as if "Palestine is the capital of Egypt." But this election is not taking place in Egypt, or anywhere that Islamic anti-Semitism might be expected to resonate with the electorate. This anti-Semitic mudslinging is going on in a congressional race in New Jersey.
Steve Rothman is a Democrat who was first elected to Congress from New Jersey's Ninth District in 1996. He is also Jewish. He currently faces a tough reelection challenge from Bill Pascrell, a Roman Catholic who entered Congress at the same time as Rothman and now, because of redistricting, finds himself in Rothman's district. In the district also is a sizeable contingent of Arabs and Muslims, who have injected an unprecedented level of Jew-baiting into the campaign. Said Ben Chouake, president of NORPAC, a pro-Israel political action committee: "One side says, 'We want this Jew out of office' and, frankly, it's pretty unsettling. They emphasized," he noted, that Rothman is "a Jewish congressman."