HASBROUCK HEIGHTS -- Members of the New Jersey chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee reflected on the past year and looked to the future at the organization's ninth annual banquet Saturday.

"We've gone a long way, but we still have a longer way to go," said Hesham Mahmoud, an ADC-NJ board member from Rutherford.

The group opened its first office last year, in Clifton. And Governor Corzine appointed three of its members to government boards, commissions and advisory committees.

Still, the organization does not want for calls from the Arab community detailing instances of discrimination. Board members who attended the event at the Hasbrouck Heights Hilton pledged to continue fighting prejudice by promoting understanding.

This month the group will speak to state employees in Trenton about Arab-American culture and relations.

Board member Bassima Mustafa of Hawthorne conducts diversity training with the Paterson Police Department. The city has a large Arab-American community.

"We're Americans regardless," Mustafa said. "There's Americans of Italian descent, of Irish descent, of every descent. We're no different."

Former U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., was the evening's keynote speaker. Chafee is one of a handful of senators who opposed the Iraq war from the outset and has called for renewed peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

"The president has kept this vision of a Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace with Israel," Chafee said in an interview before his speech. "But there's nothing happening, to my frustration and bewilderment."

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