Obama's Pal Rashidi Was PLO Terror Spokesman

http://www.iris.org.il/blog/

A number of blogs and commentators have exposed the deep connections between Barack Obama, William Ayers and "Palestinian sympathizer" Rashid Khalidi.

But here's the smoking gun. It turns out that Rashid Khalidi was much more than a "sympathizer." He was a paid spokesman for the PLO in 1978, when it was exclusively an unabashed terrorist organization, and was of course categorized as such by the United States. The evidence appears in none other than the New York Times. So why don't others have the story? 1978 archives are not searchable because they are only available on microfilm. It took an intrepid IRIS associate to dig up the article:



If the Israelis had any brains they could neutralize Palestinian irredentism just by giving back the West Bank," asserted Rashid Khalidy, an American-educated Palestinian who teaches political science at the American University of Beirut and also works for the P.L.O. "It would split us."

As detailed in Campus Watch Rashid Khalidi is trying to weasel out of having worked for the PLO:

Mr. Khalidi dismisses the allegation that he served as a PLO spokesman, saying, "I often spoke to journalists in Beirut, who usually cited me without attribution as a well-informed Palestinian source. If some misidentified me at the time, I am not aware of it."

Khalidi and Khalidy are clearly the same person. According to the Columbia Spectator, he was a professor at the American University in Beirut before his first stint at Columbia:

Khalidi came to Columbia in 1985 after teaching at Lebanese University and American University in Beirut. He has taught in political science and history departments.

According to the New York Times, the Columbia Khalidi seems to have known Arafat from that time period:

Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American professor at the University of Chicago who has known Mr. Arafat since the 1970's, said he visited Mr. Arafat recently and found him battered not only by the Israeli siege that confined him to his headquarters here but also by the recent calls for reform.

Khalidi should come clean about his terrorist connections. Here is what Khalidi's employer did a few weeks after his Times interview:

On March 11, 1978 eleven terrorists, again coming from Lebanon with Zoadic rubber commando dinghies, landed at the beach of Kibbutz Ma?agan Michael. They killed an American photographer and a taxi driver and hijacked a bus, whose passengers, including many children, were on a day-trip to the north. The hijackers forced the driver to return to Tel Aviv. Driving on the coastal highway, the terrorists fired on passing cars from the bus.

When the bus approached a blockade set up by the police at an entrance to Tel Aviv, a shootout took place. The terrorists left the bus and fired missiles. The bus burst into flames and most of the passengers were either burned alive or killed by terrorist gunfire.

The massacre left 35 innocent people dead and 100 injured. The terrorists were identified as belonging to Fatah; nine were killed and two captured.



This would explain why Obama mentor William Ayers dedicated his book to Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian terrorist who assassinated Robert Kennedy for his pro-Israel views. Ayers was very close to Khalidi and Obama, and was in attendance at the 2003 party in Khalidi's honor in which Obama toasted the PLO spokesman. The Los Angeles Times, which has been accused of partisan support of Obama, is refusing to release the tape of the event. It is alleged that Obama denounced Israel at the event in anti-Semitic terms.

(Hat tip: Michael S.)