The Truth about Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi
Ugly insinuations about Barack Obama’s relationship with a former neighbor and university colleague, Rashid Khalidi, are completely false.
Barack’s record on Israel is clear: he strongly supports the U.S.-Israel relationship. He believes that our first and incontrovertible commitment in the Middle East must be to the security of Israel, America’s strongest ally in the Middle East.
Barack and Joe Biden believe strongly in Israel’s right to protect its citizens. They have consistently supported foreign assistance to Israel. They have called for continuing U.S. cooperation with Israel in the development of missile defense systems.
Barack has nothing to hide: he has openly described his relationship with Rashid Khalidi:
“[Khalidi] is not one of my advisors; he’s not one of my foreign policy people. His kids went to the Lab school where my kids go as well. He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel’s policy…To pluck out one person who I know and who I’ve had a conversation with who has very different views than 900 of my friends and then to suggest that somehow that shows that maybe I’m not sufficiently pro-Israel, I think, is a very problematic stand to take…So we gotta be careful about guilt by association.”
Bipartisanship — getting along with people we disagree with — is something we prize in our politicians. For example, Barack has been widely praised for working with conservative Republican Senator Tom Coburn to pass a bill making government spending searchable over the Internet (Obama bio). So why should it be any different that Barack knows a respected scholar, former university colleague, and former neighbor who disagrees with him about Israel?
Smears, insults, and innuendo about the nature of Barack’s relationship with Khalidi are completely unfounded. Guilt-by-association is always a questionable tactic.
BARACK OBAMA AND RASHID KHALIDI
Obama: “I Do Know” Khalidi But “He Is Not One Of My Advisors;” “We Gotta Be Careful About Guilt By Association.” Obama said, “You mentioned Rashid Khalidi, who’s a professor at Columbia…I do know him because I taught at the University of Chicago. And he is Palestinian. And I do know him and I have had conversations. He is not one of my advisors; he’s not one of my foreign policy people. His kids went to the Lab school where my kids go as well. He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel’s policy…To pluck out one person who I know and who I’ve had a conversation with who has very different views than 900 of my friends and then to suggest that somehow that shows that maybe I’m not sufficiently pro-Israel, I think, is a very problematic stand to take…So we gotta be careful about guilt by association.” [ABC News, 5/22/08]
Khalidi Denied Reports That Obama Used To Sympathetic To The Palestinian Cause And Said He Held A Fundraiser For Obama Because They Were Friends, Not Because Of His Position On Israel. The New York Daily News reported, “Obama got help from an unlikely source yesterday when pro-Palestinian Prof. Rashid Khalidi denied a report that Obama used to be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and had recently shifted his stance to pro-Israel. Khalidi spoke to the Daily News to rebut a report on a pro-Palestinian blog that was circulated by Clinton supporters. The blog, the Electronic Intifada, offered no evidence that Obama used to be supportive of the Palestinian cause, but cited private conversations, including one at a 2000 Obama fund-raiser hosted by Khalidi. Khalidi, now head of Columbia University’s Middle East Institute, said he hosted the fundraiser because he was friends with Obama while the two lived in Chicago. ‘He never came to us and said he would do anything in terms of Palestinians,’ Khalidi said. [New York Daily News, 3/6/07]
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