THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 289, November 2, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
OBAMA'S MIDDLE EAST STUDIES MENTORS
By Cinnamon Stillwell
AN OBAMA PRESIDENCY & ITS CIRCLES OF INFLUENCE: OBAMA'S LONG LIST OF OBJECTIONABLE & RADICAL
ALLIANCES -- OBAMA'S ASSOCIATIONS WITH TERRORISTS & TERRORIST SYMPHATHIZERS -- OBAMA'S TUTELAGE UNDER
MIDDLE EAST STUDIES PROFESSORS WHO VIEW AMERICA & ISRAEL AS IMPERIALIST POWERS RESPONSIBLE FOR
VIRTUALLY EVERY SHORTCOMING & FAILURE IN THE MUSLIM WORLD, INCLUDING RADICAL ISLAM -- AMERICAN FOREIGN
POLICY UNDER AN OBAMA PRESIDENCY
FULL STORY:
When voters go to the polls on November 4, 2008, they will choose not only a new presidential administration, but also
the candidate's circles of influence. In the case of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., the
circles of influence include Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and Director of the Middle East
Institute of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.
Much of the scrutiny surrounding Obama's long list of objectionable and radical alliances has focused on Khalidi, and
with good reason. Despite Khalidi's claims to the contrary, facts indicate that he was a spokesman for the Palestinian
Liberation Organization (PLO) during the late 1970s and early 1980s, when it was listed as a terrorist organization by the
U.S. State Department. (Khalidi's wife Mona also worked for the PLO's press agency, Wikalat al-Anba al-Filastinija,
or WAFA, during that time, and, like her husband, is now at Columbia University's School of International and
Public Affairs).
Asaf Romirowsky and Jonathan Calt Harris, writing for Campus Watch in 2004, points to a June 9, 1982, Thomas L.
Friedman column in the New York Times describing Khalidi as "a director of the Palestinian press agency." The
salient section of the Friedman column can be viewed at Middle East Studies scholar Martin Kramer's Sandbox
weblog, along with information on Khalidi's involvement in the 1991 Madrid peace talks. According to Kramer, Khalidi
"belonged to a six-person advisory panel which came to Madrid precisely to serve as a conduit between the official
delegation and the PLO." Citing an October 23, 1991, New York Times article listing Khalidi as a member of this
panel, Kramer notes that "the Israeli government was not at all pleased with this addition." Finally, Kramer points to a
February 19, 1978, New York Times article in which Khalidi is described as "an American-educated Palestinian
who teaches Political Science at the American University of Beirut and also works for the P.L.O." It's unlikely that, as
Khalidi contends, these were all errors of attribution.
Khalidi certainly seems comfortable with the type of anti-Israel, anti-American propaganda the PLO and its allies peddle.
In a January 27, 2003, article titled, "Attack Iraq?" in In These Times, he wrote the following:
". . . this war will be fought because these neoconservatives
desire to make the Middle East safe not for democracy, but
for Israeli hegemony. They are convinced that the Middle
East is irremediably hostile to both the United States and
Israel; and they firmly hold the racist view that Middle
Easterners understand only force. For these American
Likudniks and their Israeli counterparts, sad to say, the
tragedy of September 11 was a godsend: It enabled them to
draft the United States to help fight Israel's enemies."
Such rhetoric hardly inspires confidence in Khalidi's teaching abilities, but his academic career has not suffered for it.
Before his current position at Columbia University, Khalidi taught Political Studies at the American University of Beirut in
the 1970s and 1980s and then went on to become a professor at the University of Chicago from 1987 to 2003. It was there
that Khalidi befriended Barack Obama and launched a series of mutually beneficial dealings.
The Arab American Action Network (AAAN), a Chicago nonprofit organization with decidedly anti-Israel leanings that
was founded by Rashid and Mona Khalidi, sponsored a fundraiser for Obama's unsuccessful congressional bid in 2000.
In turn, the Woods Fund, a nonprofit organization whose board included both Obama and Weatherman terrorist turned
Education Professor Bill Ayers, provided grants totaling $75,000 to AAAN over 2001-2002. At a farewell bash thrown by
AAAN to celebrate Khalidi's move to Columbia University in 2003, Obama, then an Illinois state senator, was one of his
most vocal supporters. During Obama's speech, he recalled his many dinners at the Khalidi home, the "conversations that
had challenged his thinking," and his hope "that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation."
Nonetheless, Obama has tried to downplay his relationship with Khalidi. But the facts speak for themselves: Khalidi and
Obama have far more than just a passing acquaintance. Khalidi's cousin, Tarif Khalidi, a professor of Arabic and Islamic
Studies at the American University of Beirut, put it plainly: "Obama was a very good friend of Rashid."
The alliance between Obama and Khalidi makes perfect sense, if seen in light of Obama's education at Columbia University
during the 1980s. Although Obama refuses to release any information from that period, we know that he studied under the
late Columbia Professor and post-colonialist icon Edward Said. A 1998 photo of the Obamas and the Saids dining together
at an event for the local Arab-American community at which Said gave the keynote address, suggests a continuing
relationship. Not coincidentally, Khalidi was an intellectual follower of Said and now holds the Chair at Columbia named for
him. It's hard to imagine that Obama emerged from this triangular association without being influenced ideologically by these
radical mentors.
Despite pandering to pro-Israel and pro-American sentiment -- depending on the audience -- Obama's tutelage under Middle
East Studies Professors who view America and Israel as imperialist powers responsible for virtually every shortcoming and
failure in the Muslim world, including radical Islam, demonstrates quite the opposite. It doesn't take a leap of imagination to
deduce that Obama's foreign policies would do the same.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
American Politics, Political Competition, & the Control of
Public Policy: Elections, Political Parties, Political Factions,
Ideologies, & Special Interest Groups
American Government & the U.S. Presidency:
Presidential Politics & National Leadership
The American Political System:
Politics & Government in the U.S.A.
Cinnamon Stillwell is the West Coast Representative for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum. She can
be reached at stillwell@meforum.org.
The foregoing article by Cinnamon Stillwell was originally published in the American Thinker, November 2, 2008, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/2002)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
November 2, 2008
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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