The chairman of the Democratic State Committee accused Republican state Sen. Gerald Cardinale on Wednesday of resorting to "disgraceful and divisive" tactics in his reelection campaign.

The Democratic chairman, Joseph Cryan, made the accusation in a statement issued hours before Cardinale was to attend an open-bar party thrown by Joseph Ferriero, chairman of the Bergen County Democratic Organization, at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City.

Cryan was referring to fliers and advertisements distributed by the Cardinale camp in the campaign's final days accusing his challenger, Saddle River attorney Joseph Ariyan, of courting support from "those who support extremism."

"Inflammatory rhetoric that demonizes any ethnic, racial or religious community should not be part of any political dialogue," Cryan said. "There are no good excuses for smear tactics and no good reasons for hateful language."

Cardinale, in turn, said Cryan leads a party "which spent close to $3 million trying to get rid of me, and he should stop being a crybaby."

Cardinale defeated Ariyan with 56 percent of the vote in the 39th Legislative District on Nov. 6.

His accusations focused on Ariyan's law partner, Hani Khoury, a former president of the North Jersey chapter of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee. Cardinale has accused that group of expressing support for Hamas and Hezbollah.

A spokeswoman for the group said last week that it works with civil rights groups and conducts diversity training sessions for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Etzion Neuer, regional director of the New Jersey chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, has described the ADC as a "mainstream Arab-American organization," though he said the two groups have had "serious disagreements."

Cardinale stood by his description of the ADC as being "soft on terrorist organizations."

E-mail: lamb@northjersey.com