Christie will get another crack at not saying ‘occupied territories’ at NY Adelson fete

Fresh off their event in Las Vegas, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Sheldon Adelson are set to meet up again at a “Champions of Jewish Values” gala in New York, May 18. Christie will be keynoting the event, and Adelson is expected to show. So is another Republican presidential possible: Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. And liberals Sean Penn and Cory Booker. Go figure.

Hosting is Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who was on stage last October when Adelson said Obama should nuke Iran.

Last week the governor had to apologize to Adelson for using the words “occupied territories” in his Las Vegas speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition. Some rightwing Israel supporters assert that as a result, Adelson, the biggest Republican donor, won’t be endorsing Christie in 2016.

Repeat after me, Governor, Judea and Samaria.

Here is the announcement of the May 18 gala: it costs $750 to get in and champion Jewish values. Sean Penn will be there too, because he helped save an American Jew in Bolivia in 2011.

Boteach promotes the event, and his organization, This World.

the leading organization bringing universal Jewish values to the media and mainstream culture, will be presenting its 2014 Champion of Jewish Justice to actor Sean Penn at its Second Annual Champions of Jewish Values International Awards Gala on May 18, 2014, at Cipriani (E. 42nd Street).

Financier Michael Steinhardt is to be there, and Senator Cory Booker too. This is the source of Rabbi Shmuley’s power, by the way– the reason that the mellifluous rabbi was a necessary stop for Samantha Power to become the next ambassador to the U.N. and in Cory Booker’s march to the Senate, too. Boteach may be a rightwing preacher who promotes books on Kosher Lust, but he’s got big money behind him. Like Steinhardt. Like the Hollywood financier David Bergstein.

P.S. Mort Klein of the Zionist Organization of America, says that Christie bullied him when he tried to explain what was wrong with the words “occupied territories.” Klein says that Christie only apologized for the remark when he realized that it hurt him with big donors. And Klein is also worried that Christie is too friendly to Muslims.

Christie also turned a blind eye to the deeply troubling record of the people who were trying to build the Ground Zero Mosque, deriding anyone concerned about their radical statements and questionable motives as “crazies.”  He blasted the New York Police Department’s surveillance of Muslim communities – which has been responsible for stopping multiple attempted terror attacks – as possibly “born out of arrogance, or out of paranoia, or out of both.”

All this and more is why Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson wrote “time and again Christie has sided with Islamist forces against those safeguarding American security and civilization.”