Statement to Montgomery Township Committee
100 Community Dr
Skillman, New Jersey
February 5, 2026

Revised for presentation (to better fit the 3-minute time limit), February 5, 2026

On January 7th, Sadaf Jaffer, the former mayor of Montgomery and former head of its Democratic Organization, made public something that this Committee has known for a year. About a year ago, she said, Mayor Neena Singh and Deputy Mayor Vince Barragan demanded her resignation from the Democratic Organization because Montgomery Township was being denied state and county funds in retaliation for, her, Jaffer’s, criticisms of US and Israeli policy in Palestine. I have an audio file of Mr Barragan’s making this demand.

Ms Jaffer asked for the names of those in county and state government who had originated the threat, and asked that this behavior not be repeated again. I’m unaware of a response.

I’m reiterating both things, then. Your behavior is not just a personal insult to her, or an infringement on her freedom, but a threat to free speech as such, and a slap to all of our faces. If government officials now think that they can threaten public funding as retaliation for political speech, then we no longer have free speech. Free speech has become a victim of anonymous puppet masters and the ventriloquist’s dummies who serve them. 

I have loved ones in Palestine. In the last two years, they’ve been given an ultimatum by the Israeli military to leave their home or be killed. The family’s ten-year-old son was ambushed by Israeli soldiers while playing soccer, shot in the leg for fun with a live M-16 round, and left for dead. He survived, but just barely. A few weeks later, the father was abducted from the family home, beaten, blindfolded, and left for dead in the desert. He survived, but a few weeks after that, the ten-year-old was abducted by the Israeli military, and has since disappeared. No one made any pretense that any of these people were militants of any kind, much less members of Hamas. In a pattern now decades old, they were marked for abuse, expropriation, and death simply because they’re Palestinian. 

This is the truth you’ve worked so hard to suppress, but the truth can’t be suppressed forever, and it takes petty, small minded people to try. It’s up to you, and up to the people of Montgomery, to decide whether that’s what you want to be. If you think you can trash free speech with impunity, I’m here to tell you that you can’t. You may be for sale, but free speech is not. Neither is the truth, and neither is Palestine.

The video of my statement is available here, around minute 42:40. My statement lasts about three minutes. There’s then a pause followed by Mayor Singh’s very brief response, to which I’ll offer a rejoinder here on my blog in due course.