Arab American Pulled From Election Ticket

[QueEx]

IN BRIEF / NEW JERSEY

<font size="5"><center>Arab American Pulled From Election Ticket</font size></center>

Los Angeles Times
From Times Wire Reports
March, 26 2006

Members of a county Democratic Party pulled an Arab American candidate from their election ticket amid a furor over comments he made four years ago that some interpreted as sympathetic to Palestinian suicide bombers.

At the urging of state party leaders, including Gov. Jon Corzine and U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, Passaic County Democrats withdrew its endorsement of Sami Merhi for a position on the county's legislative body. Merhi said he felt shocked and betrayed by the decision.

At a 2002 fundraiser, the Lebanese-born Merhi condemned the Sept. 11 terrorists "as cold-blooded murders" and "crazy fanatics." When asked to apply the same label to Palestinian suicide bombers, he said: "I can't see the comparison."

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-briefs26.2mar26,1,540489.story?coll=la-headlines-politics

 

[QueEx]

<font size="4"><center>

“For the Arab American community,
Passaic County in 2006 is what
Selma, Alabama, represented to the African American
community in 1965,”

- James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute<font size></center>



[frame]http://www.aaiusa.org/[/frame]

 

[QueEx]

Interesting. The Arab-American Institute and well as the same-sex marriage lobbies
both cite the Civil Rights Movement as inspiration/justification for their causes. If you
don't have a sense of the depth, power and significance of the Civil Rights Movement on
American politics, apparently other groups do -- hence, its not unusual that such groups
readily draw from the principles of the Movement, in 2006.

QueEx

 

[VegasGuy]

Seems a normal reaction to me.

-VG