Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October 2004, page 18

Election Watch

Kerry Names Former Congressman, AIPAC Board Member Mel Levine as Top Mideast Adviser

By Janet McMahon

“By every rating and criterion, [Senator] Kerry’s votes have shown 100 percent solid support for Israel. That’s well understood in his home state of Massachusetts, but not yet throughout the rest of the country.”

—Former Rep. Mel Levine

During his decade in Congress, Rep. Mel Levine, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was known as one of Israel’s most vocal supporters. According to the Jerusalem Post, “His clashes with former Secretary of State James Baker on the Middle East policies of the first President Bush have become part of Washington folklore.”

The California Democrat resigned his House seat in 1992 to run for an open Senate seat. Despite a whopping $108,000 in pro-Israel contributions—for a career total of $171, 980—he lost to Sen. Barbara Boxer, who received a paltry $31,003.

Newly available, Levine accepted Vice President Al Gore’s invitation to co-chair, along with the Arab American Institute’s James Zogby, Builders for Peace, the post-Oslo group formed to encourage private-sector investment in the West Bank. That initiative largely fizzled. In 1998, following the Wye accords, Levine chaired the U.S.-Israel-Palestinian “anti-incitement” task force. According to the Jerusalem Post, “He learned from this experience that incitement has to be confronted directly and aggressively, a lesson he is passing on to Kerry.”

Unfortunately, the fact that Levine recently resigned from the board of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—instead of, say, Americans for Middle East Understanding (AMEU)—indicates only too well whose incitement Levine does not intend to confront.

Sex and the State

According to the March 22, 2002 New Jersey Star-Ledger, Israeli native Golan Cipel “has been something of a mystery in Trenton since his hiring as [Gov. James] McGreevey’s special adviser on homeland security was disclosed last month.” (See the May 2002 Washington Report, p. 48.)

That disclosure was a surprise because, as the Aug. 13 New York Times reported, “On Jan. 24, 2002, with great fanfare, Mr. McGreevey announced the creation of an office of counterterrorism and appointed Kathryn Flicker, a respected assistant attorney general, to the post.

“But…Cipel…had actually been hired, with no fanfare, on Jan. 15, a full week before Ms. Flicker.”

Nor, as we now know, was that the only secret the governor had hoped to keep. McGreevey’s affair with Cipel apparently began during the former’s campaign for governor—as did the Israeli’s involvement in New Jersey’s homeland security. Antiwar.com’s Justin Raimondo, in his Aug. 14 column “Sex, Lies, and Terrorism,” quoted a local newspaper as reporting that, “Even before McGreevey’s election in November [2001], administration sources said, Cipel toured the state—visiting refineries, nuclear plants, bridges, and seaports—to make an inventory of security needs.”

While the governor and his aide may have shared a secret, however, they were far from the only players in the game.

McGreevey met Cipel in Israel, when the then-gubernatorial candidate visited the Jewish state as part of a March 2000 delegation co-sponsored by the United Jewish Federation of MetroWest New Jersey. The mission also included another candidate for high office, Jon Corzine, who spent $60 million of his own fortune in his close but successful bid for a Senate seat.

The money man in the middle of this terrific trio is New Jersey developer Charles Kushner. Currently under investigation for witness tampering, tax evasion and election code violations, Kushner—McGreevey’s top campaign contributor—hired Cipel when the Israeli moved to New Jersey to work on McGreevey’s campaign, and later sponsored Cipel for a temporary work visa. Kushner Companies is Senator Corzine’s second-largest contributor, having donated $87,000 to the New Jersey Democrat, who is not up for re-election until 2006.

Sex and money is a heady brew indeed, and the American public can expect to be entertained by yet another scandal in the weeks leading up to the November election. They may find themselves diverted from the real question, however, of who is stirring the pot. (Hint: Cipel subsequently returned to Israel.)

Janet McMahon is managing editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.