- Golan Cipel is the petty officer who said he fought terrorists
while in the Israeli army, the Israeli Consulate information officer who
called himself a counterterrorism specialist, the homeland security honcho
who couldn't get security clearance.
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- Now that people close to New Jersey Governor James McGreevey
have identified the Israeli as the gay lover who brought the governor down,
Cipel is saying he is neither gay nor a lover to McGreevey.
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- The Democratic governor's relationship with Cipel, who
served for a time as McGreevey's liaison to the Jewish community, led to
the governor's admission last week that he is gay - and to his resignation
from the governor's seat he has held since 2002.
-
- McGreevey admitted to a relationship with a man, but
did not go into details; staff members have named Cipel.
-
- In an interview this weekend with the Israeli daily Yediot
Achronot, Cipel, 35, vigorously denied a consensual affair with the 47-year-old
governor.
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- "It doesn't bother me that it is said I am gay,
but I really am not, I'm straight," Cipel said. "He hit on me
over and over. It got to a point where I was afraid to stay with him alone."
-
- On Tuesday, Cipel arrived home in Israel.
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- "I have come to Israel to be with my family at this
time," Cipel told reporters. Later he released a statement saying
he would return to the United States in a few weeks "to make sure
justice will come to light."
-
- It's not the first time in his career that Cipel has
been at the center of contradictory accounts, nor is it the first time
that such accounts rocked McGreevey's administration.
-
- Within weeks of his appointment in January 2002 as homeland
security adviser by the just-installed McGreevey administration, Cipel
was dogged by controversy.
-
- For one thing, federal homeland security officials would
not grant the Israeli national the clearance necessary to read the material
that was critical to carrying out the job.
-
- The substantial experience in public security the McGreevey
administration attributed to Cipel appeared on closer look to be at best
inflated, according to investigative reporting in 2002 for Gannett's New
Jersey newspapers by Sandy McClure in New Jersey and Yossi Melman, a veteran
investigative reporter with the daily Ha'aretz in Israel.
-
- Among other presumed qualifications cited by McClure
in a letter from McGreevey's chief counsel to the immigration service were:
-
- * His experience as chief information officer at the
New York Consulate General, which the letter said "involved responsibility
for developing and maintaining the country's terrorism portfolio, etc.
In fact, Cipel was employed as a local hire by the New York consulate in
the mid-1990s and lacked the clearance to read security-sensitive material
that someone hired in Jerusalem would have had. He dealt with the media
and was never involved in anything related to terrorism, then-consul general
Colette Avital said, according to the newspaper investigations.
-
- * "As a Naval officer in the Israel Defense Force,
Mr. Cipel functioned as a special operations officer and was appointed
as media adviser, disseminating data on military operations and anti-terrorism
measures to the media while insuring that sensitive information was not
disclosed," the letter said.
-
- Cipel indeed served in the Navy, Melman told JTA, but
the "media adviser" description apparently referred to his reserve
duty on the homeland, which, according to Melman, is "basically considered
one of the lowest commands in the Israeli general staff."
-
- When the investigation came to light, Republicans and
some Democrats were soon on the warpath.
-
- "He wasn't going to be able to pass the simplest
of four-way background checks to be a state trooper," Guy Gregg, a
Republican state assemblyman, said at the time.
-
- Cipel resigned his position with the McGreevey government
in August 2002.
-
- McGreevey's friend and campaign donor Charles Kushner
- himself now the target of a federal investigation involving alleged blackmail
- helped find Cipel work. He went through a quick round of highly paid
P.R. jobs. He lost them, reportedly, because he kept failing to turn up
for work.
-
- The contradictory accounts of Cipel's career continue
to pile up. McGreevey's staff accuse Cipel of trying to extort as much
as $50 million from the governor, according to news reports.
-
- A deal (for a much lower amount) was in the offing when
McGreevey suddenly resigned, Cipel's lawyers say.
-
- No such thing, say McGreevey's staff.
-
- One thing is clear and acknowledged by all sides: Cipel
and McGreevey met on a trip McGreevey took to Israel in 2000 that was sponsored
by New Jersey federations, when McGreevey was the mayor of Woodbridge,
N.J., with an eye on the state house.
-
- The two men instantly clicked, say those who witnessed
the encounter at a wedding hall in Rishon le-Zion, the Tel Aviv suburb
where Cipel worked as a municipal spokesman. Cipel insisted his first encounters
with McGreevey were not at all romantic.
-
- McGreevey offered Cipel a campaign job almost immediately,
and soon Cipel was on his way to New Jersey to help out with the gubernatorial
campaign.
-
- The sudden move caught his boss, Rishon Mayor Meir Nitzan,
a little off-guard. "He was a good worker, organized but not outstanding,"
Nitzan told JTA. "The whole story surprises me. I guess it shows you
work with people but do not really know them."
-
- Campaign staffers found Cipel an apartment close to McGreevey's
condominium when he arrived in the United States. Later, McGreevey himself
reportedly viewed a townhouse Cipel was to buy before the purchase was
completed.
-
- Even after he left the administration, Cipel maintained
his role as an unofficial liaison between McGreevey and the Jewish community.
-
- David Mallach, former director of the MetroWest, N.J.,
Jewish Community Relations Committee, said his group encountered no problems
working with Cipel.
-
- "For a guy like Jim McGreevey, who already had a
lot of good Jewish relationships, Cipel's role wasn't a key one,"
Mallach said.
-
- Others who know both men say Cipel's claim of no consensual
relationship will be a hard sell.
-
- David Twersky, who was then the editor of the New Jersey
Jewish News, was friends with both men, and said he warned them both that
their relationship was obvious and would eventually cost them dearly.
-
- Cipel denied a relationship, and McGreevey dismissed
Twersky's concerns without outright denying it, Twersky recalled.
-
- "He would have had to leave Israel and come to New
Jersey, work for the campaign, all the while resisting McGreevey's advances,
nevertheless getting this plum job, leaving it only to get a series of
high-paying lobbyist jobs on the recommendation of a man who was frustrated,"
said Twersky, now the international affairs director for the American Jewish
Congress.
-
- "It is absolutely preposterous, it makes no sense,
it is ridiculous on the face of it."
-
- Cipel could not be reached for comment.
-
- - Washington correspondent Matthew E. Berger, New York
staff writer Rachel Pomerance and Jerusalem correspondent Dina Kraft contributed
to this report
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- Copyright 2004 Cleveland Jewish News
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