cwnewz.com - Rashid Khalidi is an anti-Israel professor. His ties to Obama stirred controversy during the campaign. He has stated he could currently communicate with Obama.
Obama repeatedly had denied he was influenced by Khalidi, amid concern within the pro-Israel Jewish community.
Khalidi expressed hope Obama would alter U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, talking to "all sides" of the Israeli-Palestinian arena in an interview with the radical Democracy Now! news network last week. He also criticized Israel for killing civilians in the Gaza Strip the past few weeks and for leading what he termed a "propaganda campaign" to de-legitimize the Hamas terrorist organization.
Khalidi was asked if he could speak now to Obama, and in his reply he said "I could."
"You knew him? Can you speak to him? Can you talk to him now? Do you have access to President Obama, or President-elect, for the next few days?" Khalidi was asked by interviewer Amy Goodman from WolrdNetDaily.
Khalidi replied: "I mean, I was – we were his neighbors. We lived in the same neighborhood. We were colleagues at the University of Chicago. We saw each other quite frequently. I could – I mean, it is not easy to reach a president. The cocoons, the layers, are quite formidable."
He went on to accuse Israel of "moving over, in effect, the bodies of women and children" during the Jewish state's campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
"They have carried out one of the most brilliant propaganda campaigns I have ever seen, long before this began. The dehumanization of the Palestinians and the demonization of Hamas laid the groundwork for this. They did what I call 'clearing the crime scene before the crime' by removing all witnesses," Khalidi stated.
Speaking about Obama's foreign policy, Khalidi said "there will be a change in policy."
"I mean we're already seeing it insofar as Iraq is concerned. I think we hopefully will see it in other areas. No, there will be a change. The question is how far. And enormous change is needed. I mean, everything we've been doing over not just the past administration – it's easy to criticize George Bush – but what has been done over several administrations has been fundamentally mistaken. And I don't know how radical a turn he is going to be able to make, even if he's willing and desirous of doing so."
"He managed to deliver himself of pronouncements about Mumbai and about the economy," Khalidi continued. "The only thing he said about Gaza was humanitarian, and he's concerned about the casualties. I am more hopeful that once he is president, he will speak very directly to all the parties, not just to Israel, but also to the Egyptians and also to the Palestinian Authority. I hope he will change American policy. I think the important thing is when he's president and when his team is in place, which it is not yet. The people who will actually execute whatever policies are decided at the top have not yet been chosen."
WND also exposed that Khalidi is a top director for an organization that has a long and intertwined history with the Palestine Liberation Organization, including while the PLO was one of the world's foremost terrorist organizations. He has spoken to the media apparently as a PLO representative, but has long denied he worked for the PLO.
Obama claimed his relationship with Khalidi was limited to "conversations" at a campaign stop in a Florida synagogue last May.
"You mentioned Rashid Khalidi, who's a professor at Columbia," Obama said. "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 advisers; 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."
Continued Obama: "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," he said. "So we gotta be careful about guilt by association."
But the Obama-Khalidi relationship goes much deeper.
According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, the Democratic presidential hopeful first befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003, while Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004.
Christian Web News - Jesus has a way of getting right to the point, doesn't He? There was certainly no mincing of words, He came right out and said, "why are you fearful?" and then went on to say, "O you of little faith." You don't have to read between the lines to see what He was saying, they had little faith.
Christian Web News - Galatians 3:13-14. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree''), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
