Paterson's ‘Palestine Way' draws a Republican response

Politico

28-05-2025

Good Wednesday morning!
Great news. There's an effort afoot to bar local governments from naming public property after terrorist organizations. I doubt that's controversial. Every Republican member of the Senate has signed on as a sponsor of the bill, which would strip municipalities of state aid if they don't remove the name.
Oh wait. The bill bars naming property after a group that 'has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by any branch or agency of the federal government, or after land controlled by a foreign terrorist organization, not including recognized, sovereign nations.'
I think you see where this is going. I asked the Senate Republican Office if there were any specific incidents that inspired this bill and didn't hear back. But it appears its genesis is Paterson's naming of a small part of Main Street 'Palestine Way' in 2022.
'They were doing that up in Paterson, one of the streets they named,' the bill's top sponsor, state Sen. Bob Singer, told me when I asked him what inspired it, though he didn't remember exactly what it was called. 'It was something inappropriate.'
By the bill's language, I don't think Paterson would be penalized for Palestine Way. But if they wanted to name a certain corridor the Gaza Strip, it probably would. Hamas controls Gaza, but not the West Bank — both of which are populated by Palestinians.
The bill came after Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh was criticized on the right by calling Paterson 'the capital of Palestine.' Sayegh told me he felt the bill was introduced 'to incite something.'
'We've named streets Bangladesh Blvd, Colombian Corridor, Jamaica Way, Dominican Republic Way, Peru Square and Palestine Way,' Sayegh said.
Singer told me while he doesn't equate the word Palestine with terrorism, 'some of the rhetoric gets a little bit heated' and 'we just want to say make sure you can't do that.'
That kind of thing does occasionally happen. Leftist students at City College in New York for years had a room named the 'Guillermo Morales/Assata Shakur Student and Community Center' after two convicted fugitives who fled to Cuba — Morales, a bombmaker for a Puerto Rican independence group and Shakur, aka Joanne Chesimard, who killed New Jersey State Trooper. But I don't think most of us would consider that the same as naming a street after Palestine.
'Palestine is not a dirty word,' Sayegh told me.
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WHERE'S MURPHY — No public schedule
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MARK YOUR CALENDARS: The Conversation with Dasha Burns arrives on Sunday, June 1 — and we're dropping a first look. Each week on her new podcast, Dasha will sit down with one of the most compelling — and sometimes unexpected — power players in Washington. This isn't just a podcast. It's a new kind of political interview show for a moment when politics feels more personal, more chaotic and more consequential than ever. Catch the video and audio trailer out this morning to see what Dasha's digging into this season. And subscribe to the podcast, wherever you listen or watch.
TRUMP ERA
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