Times Refuses to Release Tape of Obama Praising Controversial Activist

Rashid Khalidi

OMG, Drew..

When I was at Sears just the other day, the salesperson was named Rashid. Not only did I consort with a terrorist, but Sears is now hiring them it seems.

Dr. Khalidi was a director of the official PLO press agency WAFA in Beirut from 1976 to 1982. During this time the US State Department considered the PLO a terrorist organization and the PLO was involved with terrorist attacks. WAFA was not an independent, unaffiliated news organization.

Dr. Khalidi, notwithstanding his current work, cannot pretend he was some outsider with no ties to the policies and practices of the PLO in the late 70s.

I am not questioning nor challenging Dr. Khalidi’s academic credentials. He is a real professor and has written real books. But he is not some neutral observer.

And Khalidi has direct ties to Obama. These are not imagined. Before getting his job at Columbia University Rashid Khalidi was a Middle East professor at the University of Chicago, where he befriended none other than US presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama. In 2000 Khalidi held a successful fundraiser for Barack

Barack also played a role in getting funding for Khalidi’s Arab American Action Network during his tenure on the board of the Woods Fund.

Khalidi said the following about the Washington Institute:

By God, I say that the participation of the sons or daughters of the Arabs in the plans and affairs of this institute is a huge error, this Israeli institute in Washington, an institute founded by AIPAC, the Zionist lobby, and that hosts tens of Israelis every year. The presence of an Arab or two each year can’t disguise the nature of this institute as the most important center of Zionist interests in Washington for at least a decade. I very much regret the participation of Arab officials and non-officials and academics in the activities of this institute, because in fact if you look at the output of this institute, it’s directed against the Palestinians, against the Arabs, and against the Muslims in general. Its products describe the Palestinians as terrorists, and in fact its basic function is to spread lies and falsehoods about the Arab world, of course under an academic, scholarly veneer. Basically, this is the most important Zionist propaganda tool in the United States.

A glance at Khalidi's work shows why this is a step in the wrong direction for Columbia University. His writings and statements routinely cross the line from education into a political advocacy that is not just extremist but often factually wrong. Four examples:

On American foreign policy. Following Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Khalidi called the widespread resistance to this act of aggression an "idiots' consensus" and called on his colleagues to combat it. After 9/11, he admonished Washington to drop what he called its "hysteria about suicide bombers."

Khalidi asserts that the U.S. government has "yet to support the independence of Arab Palestine," despite open endorsement by President George W. Bush of a Palestinian state, and nearly $1 billion in direct U.S. aid to the West Bank and Gaza since 1993.

And beware anyone who disagrees with Khalidi! He throws reckless accusations out against them, such as calling Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz "a fanatical, extreme right-wing Zionist."

On Palestinian violence. Khalidi glorifies anti-Israel violence as contributing to "political enlightenment" and unsurprisingly admires those who carry it out. His loyalty to Palestinian terrorist groups run so deep that he actually dedicated his 1986 valentine to the PLO, Under Siege, to "those who gave their lives . . . in defense of the cause of Palestine and independence of Lebanon." The book whitewashes PLO violence against Israelis and Lebanese, as well as the Syrian occupation.

On media coverage. When Palestinian violence garners unfavorable publicity, Khalidi's response it to blame the messenger, not the murderers. Thus, in response to Palestinians lynched two off-duty Israeli officers on October 12, 2000, Khalidi did not critique the perpetrators of this crime, but railed against the "prostitute" and "cynical" media that dared to show Palestinians triumphantly displaying bloodied hands after the killings. In like spirit, he faults not those Palestinians who erupted in joyous street celebrations at the murders of 3,000 Americans on 9/11, but the media for having the temerity to report these occurrences.

On Israel as a U.S. ally. In Khalidi's fevered imagination, Israel is not a democratic ally but an "apartheid system in creation" and a destructive "racist" state. In his efforts to indict the Jewish state, Khalidi is quite prepared to make up accusations, such as his claim that Israel's army has "awful weapons of mass destruction (many supplied by the U.S.) that it has used in cities, villages and refugee camps." This is a plain lie. That so few Americans agree with his bizarre reading of Israel's democracy as a menacing enemy state causes him to dismiss them as "brainwashed."