ENGLEWOOD, N.J. — Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi will set foot on U.S. soil for the first time next month when he comes to address the U.N. General Assembly. Now he wants to put down stakes in the middle of American suburbia.
Plans to set up a tent and allow him to stay at a Libyan-owned estate in this upscale community 12 miles north of Manhattan were attacked Monday by neighborhood residents and public officials, particularly after the hero’s welcome Libya extended last week to the man convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan American Flight 103.
The attack over Lockerbie, Scotland, thought to be the work of Libyan intelligence, killed all 259 people on board the flight, including 33 from New Jersey.
“Gadhafi is a dangerous dictator whose hands are covered with the blood of Americans and our allies,” said U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman, whose district includes Englewood. He promised there would be “hell to pay” if the U.S. State Department violates a long-standing deal barring the dictator from staying at the Libyan estate.
State department officials said no decision had been made on the issue.
Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes said he would be very disappointed if Gadhafi visited. “I’m not going over there with a honey cake.”
“This is what happens when you have the path of appeasement,” said Susan Cohen, of Cape May Court House, N.J. “He’s getting everything he wants, and I guess that includes a trip to the state of New Jersey, which certainly doesn’t need this.”
Cohen’s 20-year-old daughter died in the plane bombing.
Neighbors were wary of Gadhafi and the protests his presence might draw.
“It’s very peaceful here and we’d like to keep it that way, but what can we do if the government lets him in,” said Bennie Wong, 58, who has lived across the street from the estate for 15 years.
“I don’t want him living here if he thinks a convicted terrorist is a hero,” said Dr. Joel Kopelman, 58, who lives a block away.
Shmuley Boteach, an orthodox Jewish rabbi and star of the TV series “Shalom in the Home,” lives next door to the Libyan estate.
“I don’t want him as a neighbor,” Boteach said. “The events of the past few days have changed everything. Gadhafi has shown his true colors.”
Bob Monetti of Cherry Hill, N.J., whose 20-year-old son died in the bombing, said allowing Gadhafi to stay in New Jersey would make it more difficult to live with what’s happened.
“When he’s in his tent in the desert in Libya he’s a distant character that we can hate at arm’s length, but when he comes to New Jersey, it just means he’s on our home turf, and we don’t want him on our home turf,” he said.
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