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Special Report
The PLO’s Professor
Rashid Khalidi, Barack Obama’s frequent dinner companion, was closer to Yasser Arafat’s terrorist group than you may think.
The refusal by the Los Angeles Times to release the videotape featuring Barack Obama’s farewell toast to Rashid Khalidi has thrust the Columbia University professor and activist into the center of the presidential campaign, creating particular interest in his ties to Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization.
Liberals have defended Khalidi as a “respected academic,” and amid all of the political noise and accusations flying back and forth between the two camps, it’s easy to see how some voters would tune out when conservatives refer to him as a former “PLO spokesman.” But without engaging in the semantic debate over what word should be applied to his complex and long-standing relationship with the terrorist group, a TAS analysis of contemporaneous news accounts dating back to the 1970s as well a look at Khalidi’s own writings leave no doubt that a close relationship existed.
While living in Lebanon from the early 1970s through 1983 (where the PLO was based at the time), Khalidi was frequently cited in the press as being close to the organization, and he even used the word “we” while speaking on the group’s behalf. He was described as a “director” of Wafa, the PLO’s official news agency, and he thanked Arafat for research assistance in the preface of one of his books. In 1991, Khalidi was part of the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid peace talks with Israel — by his own account, he did so at the request of the PLO.
Before delving into the details, it’s worth entertaining the legitimate question of why Khalidi’s background and writings should raise concerns about Obama himself.
The L.A. Times story from April about their relationship answers this question quite clearly. Not only did Obama know Khalidi, but the professor was his “friend and frequent dinner companion” who Obama was close enough to that he attended the 2003 going away party thrown when Khalidi was moving to New York.
In his toast, Obama went out of his way to thank Khalidi (and his wife Mona) for “consistent reminders of my own blind spots and own biases,” and he added that the conversation they engaged in was necessary around “this entire world.” Given that America is on the cusp of electing Obama, a man of little experience about whom very little is known, it is perfectly fair to learn more about Khalidi, whose viewpoints Obama thought the whole world needed to hear.
ON JUNE 11, 1979, the New York Times ran an article explaining that the PLO was worried that the Camp David peace accords between Israel and Egypt would undermine Palestinians. The article quoted Khalidi opposing the deal for that very reason, and identified him as somebody “close to Al Fatah,” an arm of the PLO.
It read:
One view shared by the Palestinian leadership and the rank and file, down to armed youths who guard doorways and intersections, is that the goal of an independent state will be foreclosed if the Camp David accords succeed. “We are in a make-or-break-it period,” asserted Rashid Khalidi, a professor of political science who is close to Al Fatah. “If we don’t turn the tide, if what (Egyptian President Anwar) Sadat is doing is not decisively repudiated, if the idea that Sadat had brought peace is allowed to stick without regard to Palestinian rights, then we are done in. Israel doesn’t need to sign with us. They already control the land.”
Also noteworthy about the quote was Khalidi’s use of the term “we” in reference to the Palestinian leadership, which turns out to be more of a habit than an isolated occurrence.
For instance, a January 6, 1981 Christian Science Monitor article that refers to Khalidi as “a Palestinian with good access to the PLO leadership,” reads:
Dr. Khalidi also argued that the PLO’s standing among Arabs in the Israeli-occupied areas has grown significantly. “Quite apart from the politics of it, we have built up tremendous links with the Palestinians ‘on the inside’ in different ways. We can render them services, often through our compatriots in the West, that King Hussein, for example, could never match. We’ve never been stronger there, and the trend is continuing,” he said.
Ironically, the same article quotes him as saying that hardliners within the PLO “perceive the new administration as basically hostile — possibly more hostile than the Carter administration.” Yes, on Planet Khalidi, even Jimmy Carter could be seen as being overtly hostile to the Palestinians.
But the evidence for the connections between Khalidi and the PLO are much more explicit than that. Thomas Friedman, in a June 8, 1982 New York Times piece about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, referred to Khalidi as “a director of the Palestinian press agency, Wafa.” To be clear, Wafa is controlled by the PLO —and you don’t have to take my word for it. Even Khalidi himself, on page 7 of his 1986 book Under Siege: P.L.O. Decisionmaking During the 1982 War, describes it as “the P.L.O.’s news agency.”
That’s not the most telling part of Under Siege. In the book’s preface, Khalidi reserves his first paragraph of thanks for the research assistance provided by the PLO in general, and Arafat specifically. “Permission to utilize the P.L.O. Archives for the first time was generously given by the Chairman of the P.L.O. Executive Committee, Yasser ‘Arafat,” Khalidi wrote. “To him, and to the dedicated individuals working in the Office of the Chairman, the P.L.O. Archives, and the Palestine News Agency (WAFA), who extended every possible assistance to me on three trips to Tunis, I owe deep thanks.”
About the Author
Philip Klein is The American Spectator’s Washington correspondent. You can follow him on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/Philipaklein
Letter to the Editor View all comments (28) | Leave a comment
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Grissie| 10.31.08 @ 8:16AM
Clearly Obamas friendships, acquaintances, and colleagues are a pretty unique group. Especially for a front running Presidential candidate. A list of NO FLY candidates for certain. The list goes on and on. If he becomes President, then what will we learn. Wake Up America.
Thomas| 10.31.08 @ 8:47AM
The Second Amendment is not the only one upon which Senator Obama "shuffles". Indeed, his entire campaign is based upon the deliberate concealment and misrepresentation of his values because he is simply not electable if the truth were known. For another telling insight into the true beliefs of this frightening and deceitful man, check out his numerous attempts to suppress the free speech of those who take issue with his policies.
Jim| 10.31.08 @ 8:55AM
I still don't understand why the approach on the LA TIMES to release the video is not like that of forcing Richard Nixon to release the Watergate Tapes? LA TIMES = Trickie Dickie !!!
We all know that if the Watergate Tapes were known off prior to the 1972 election and of course released. The "smoking gun" statement would have sunk Dickie's election. (maybe, McGovern was a poor chose)
It is the suppression of information that is vital to the national interest and the electroate prior to this election. It's time to file suit and make it THE NATIONAL HEADLINE across America where the MSM will not be able to hide this story any longer.
Rob| 10.31.08 @ 9:05AM
McCain Funded Work Of Palestinian His Campaign Hopes To Tie To Obama
During the 1990s, while he served as chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI), McCain distributed several grants to the Palestinian research center co-founded by Khalidi, including one worth half a million dollars.
A 1998 tax filing for the McCain-led group shows a $448,873 grant to Khalidi's Center for Palestine Research and Studies for work in the West Bank. (See grant number 5180, "West Bank: CPRS" on page 14 of this PDF.)
The relationship extends back as far as 1993, when John McCain joined IRI as chairman in January. Foreign Affairs noted in September of that year that IRI had helped fund several extensive studies in Palestine run by Khalidi's group, including over 30 public opinion polls and a study of "sociopolitical attitudes."
Robert| 10.31.08 @ 9:38AM
Rob, Senator McCain's IRI group granted funds to the CPRS, a pro-Israel political action committee. It was not "Khalidi's (organization)" although K. did for a short time belong to it. Khalidi, upon realizing that the outcome of CPRS polling actually turned out to be pro-Israel, Khalidi resigned from it.
You are deliberately trying to confuse Khalidi's association with CPRS with that of his membership in the Institute for Palestine Studies, a pro-terrorist front group, of which he remains its General Secretary to this day.
McCain NEVER gave funds to the IPS, or any other from organization apologizing for terrorists, nor has he been associated with any of its sympathizers. Can you, Rob, make the same claim for Obama?
Ghastlyone| 10.31.08 @ 9:55AM
Hey Rob,
Do you also have a tape with McCain having dinner and praising Khalidi at the same "going away" party? Yeah....didn't think so.
It'd be interesting to hear or see what was said there at that party.
Another thing I find pretty funny....
Obama attended that Daily Kos Convention earlier in the year and even spoke there. You telling me out of all the videos on the these candidates' campaign trails, there's no video of this one? hmmmm....I wonder why *scratches chin*
Barackula| 10.31.08 @ 10:29AM
Khalidi, Ayers and Obama are 3 peas in a pod.
Khalidi thanks Ayers for his help on his book partly written on Ayer's dining room table.
Ayers quotes Khalidi in his books. Obama wrote prasie for Ayers' book on juevenile justice in the Chicago Trib.
The fact that almost no one knows this is criminal.
Anthony| 10.31.08 @ 10:55AM
Look, we need to just brush aside leftists academics descriptions of their radical collegues/comrades. By engaging in this nonsense, we give credibility to their Orwellian word spin. Khalidi, Ayers and chief walking eagle, aka Ward Churchill, are radicals, pure and simple. They have overt distain for America and in some instances committed crimes against America and Americans. Obama had surrounded himself with a cadre of radicals, including J.Wright; that is the point, pure and simple. Obama is a hard core leftist radical and no amount of media spin/obfuscation will change that. Concentrate on that and stop playing patty cake word games with the apologists for these radicals.
Tom Paine| 10.31.08 @ 11:55AM
Klein --
You sir are a hack. Aside from the fact that McCain has even more of an (equally meaningless) association with this man, and organized a grant of a half million dollars for a group, it doesn't matter.
Palestinians are the last people on earth otherwise tolerant and enlightened people feel free to hate.
The word "Palestinian" is a synonym for "terrorist" to these arrogant ignoramuses.
The fact is that Arabs and Palestinians are hospitable, friendly, cultured, joyful, God fearing people.
There are terrorists and criminals among them as among any group. But the bigotry, the awful, hateful, downright brutal and stupid bigotry that we somehow feel justified in showing them is a disgrace. It is moral insanity.
I strongly support Israel and her right to defend herself. I rebuke violence and terrorism. However, I also see that Palestinians have much to grieve, and I do not believe that shutting opposing -- even controversial -- voices out of public debate on this issue does any good.
You people need to grow up.
Anthony| 10.31.08 @ 12:16PM
Thomas Paine appears to be one of the numerous leftist bloggers assigned to inundate conservative web sites. Fine, we welcome the dialogue, albeit, that's generously granting status to what they write as dialogue. Thomas here, grants moral equilivancy to the Palestinians. He sees them as oppressed people. He however fails to acknowledge that the PLO and its followers, (Khalidi) call for the destruction of Israel. Thomas sees Khalidi as just another voice in the public debate. It is you Thomas that not only needs to grow up, you need to remove your head from its current obstructed position.
Tom Paine| 10.31.08 @ 12:29PM
Anthony --
I assure you I've been "assigned" no tasks by anyone. I came to the American Spectator looking for conservative opinions and viewpoints. I value conservative ideas and respect some conservative thinkers. I admit I wasn't prepared for the lunacy of some of the opinions I've found, but I'll also admit some have given me things to think about.
If I could hope to persuade you and your fellows of any single point, it would not really have anything to do with actual policy. It would be this:
Conflating the Palestinians with the PLO is rank ignorance. I do NOT make an equivalence between terrorists and Israeli security measures (maybe that was the point you were struggling to make). However, I also see our political rhetoric about Arabs and Palestinians in particular as drifting into arenas of incoherent moral stupidity.
If you knew anything about Palestinian history you would understand that they are an oppressed people -- even by other Arabs.
My Irish grandmother was not a terrorist because she used to contribute $5 a month to Sinn Fein. Palestinians who support the PLO are not necessarily sympathetic with terrorism.
The world is more complicated than this article and this rhetoric would allow. True, Limbaugh, Hannity, and the rest of the shock-jock crowd don't see it that way. But as Americans we need to renounce simplistic and shallow bigotry, especially if we ever hope to be part of a solution to the Israeli conflict with Palestinians.
Robert| 10.31.08 @ 12:35PM
Just watching Obama's "Early Vote for Change" rally in Des Moines.
Now that we know how many cockroaches infest the Obama house, it becomes clear why he is desperate to make sure as many deluded voters cast their for him before the Khalidi s**t hits the fan!
Ghastlyone| 10.31.08 @ 12:45PM
Tom Paine said:
"The world is more complicated than this article and this rhetoric would allow. True, Limbaugh, Hannity, and the rest of the shock-jock crowd don't see it that way. But as Americans we need to renounce simplistic and shallow bigotry, especially if we ever hope to be part of a solution to the Israeli conflict with Palestinians. "
Lmao....maybe you, Tom, should start actually "listening" to Limbaugh and Hannity?
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2008/10/19/pew-limbaughs-hannitys-fans-smarter-politics-colberts-cnns-stwea
Anthony| 10.31.08 @ 1:52PM
Thomas, Excuse me but how is "conflating" the Palestinians with the PLO "rank ignorance"? Aren't the PLO the recognized leadership authority of the Palestinians? And if not, where do the two groups differ on Israel and its right to exist. If the PLO does not speak for the Palestinians, who then does? And please spare me the doublespeak that passes for diplomatic nuiance. Arafat, for decades engaged in this duplicity that had the diplomatic world in a swoon. Same with those leftist fools at the Nobel Institute that gave him the "peace prize". I agree that the Palestinians as a people have been oppresssed, but as you acknowledge, the oppression is more a function of their fellow Arabs than Israeli. I'm sorry, perhaps I'm obtuse, but I cannot seperate the Palestinians from the PLO, but I welcome evidence to the contrary. Finally, your analogy that your grandmother was not a terrorist because she gave $5 to Sinn Fein is a cleaver devise. Tehchnically, she probably wasn't , in that she planted no bombs and shot no police, but in supporting Sinn Fein, she supported their goals and tactics. You offer a Chinese wall, if you will, that fails to seperate the two. If you claim the same distinction between the PLO and the Palestinians, you fall for this shallow fallacy.
Tom Paine| 10.31.08 @ 2:14PM
Clearly you don't know anything about Ireland let alone the Palestinians. And why should you? You get your news from a media that can't be bothered to give four minutes a night to decent coverage of foreign countries. Nevertheless, evan a little a priori reasoning should help you distinguish between Palestinians as a people and the PLO. I couldn't really tell from your post, but it seems like there's a glimmer of hope you can manage that at least.
As for listening to Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh: no thanks. I can't take the constant braying and honking.
Tom Paine| 10.31.08 @ 2:21PM
Robert --
You refer to your fellow Americans who support Obama as "cockroaches." That's just the term they used in Rwanda for the people they wanted to exterminate.
Clearly McCain will carry the military vote overall. Still, tens of thousands of soldiers and sailors will vote for Obama, many of whom are serving overseas.
Are they cockroaches too?
What makes you so wise, Robert?
Ghastlyone| 10.31.08 @ 3:01PM
Tom Paine stated: "That's just the term they used in Rwanda for the people they wanted to exterminate. "
I wonder if Raila Odinga also used this same "term" after his failed candidacy that Obama supported/campaigned for in Kenya, resulting in the burning of churches and killing innocent people? Hmmm...
Anthony| 10.31.08 @ 4:17PM
Thomas, Other than your facile, smarmy insults, you fail to address my post, and do not respond to any of the points I raised. You then claim that clearly I don't understand Ireland or the Palestinians, that is what we call circular logic. Tell me how the Palestinian people differ politically from the PLO that is their LEGAL representative. What political goals and methods do they share or disagree on? Tell me the semantic difference between those who contribute financially to terrorist organizations and the actual members of those organizations? If all you can do is name call and tell us that you are superior to us without proof of your brilliance, then go back to Moveon, because in all your posts thus far, you've shown me nothing of substance, just dogma.
Tom Paine| 10.31.08 @ 4:37PM
Anthony,
I did not respond to your suggestion that my grandmother was a terrorist. It is true. However, I do believe I addressed some of your other points.
Let me be plain. The word "Palestinian" refers to an ethnic group of Arabs.
The PLO is one of many, many political organizations that operates in the Middle East. They claim to represent the interests of Palestinians, but I doubt all Palestinians would agree that this is true.
Like all people, Palestinians have complicated and sometimes conflicting beliefs about their political situation.
My point is that lumping them together and labeling them "terrorists" or failing to distinguish between one political organization and an entire people is foolish.
I would further add that judging a person a terrorist or "radical" based on the fact that they have spoken well of or even on behalf of the PLO is simplistic.
The part of the world we're talking about is tragically conflicted, extremely complicated, and not very well represented or discussed in the media. When I speak to friends from that part of the world I am always amazed by how little information we actually receive about what is going on there.
If you want to think that the Fox Newsopia in which you blissfully dwell is giving you a clear picture of what goes on in Gaza or on the West Bank, go right ahead.
Tom Paine| 10.31.08 @ 4:48PM
For God's sake, don't any of you listen to what the current president -- your guy -- says about this issue?
President Bush supports a two-state solution. Secretary Rice has been working towards this end. Implicitly this acknowledges many of the grievances of the Palestinians -- and yes, of the PLO. It acknowledges their right to sovereign territory that was stripped from them by force in the years following WWII. I'm not speaking to you from some far left fringe, folks, and it's not all that earth-shattering to call attention to the plight of the Palestinians.
GiNFiZ| 11.1.08 @ 2:38AM
Well said, Thomas.
Khalidi's only 'crime' was to expose how our tax dollars are used to uproot West Bank palestinian villages and to replace them with McMansions for Floridian and Californian 'settlers.'
Grissie| 11.1.08 @ 8:57AM
How over simplified can the Obama relationships be portrayed ?
"A guy in my neighborhood, a respected educational professor, a respected academic, pastor of my church, a business partner, campaign fund raiser."
If it walks like a duck.... come on Thomas Pain, it is obvious your a well versed being, you can't possibly believe the argument you set forth in the defense of Khalidi anymore than I buy all the coincidental associations of the "political messiah". What I find almost laughable is the country these left-wing nut jobs choose to reside. The very country they renounce. Why ? Because they actually are cowards. The safe-haven they languish for their own safety to spew their contempt.
Tom Paine| 11.1.08 @ 10:12AM
Grissie --
Right wingers are desperate to find the traitors among us, those who stab their country in the back.
This desperation stems from their need to explain why things aren't going well. It can't possible be Republican policies that make people in the middle class feel anxious about their security or their future. It can't possibly be Republican policies that have made us so unpopular in the world.
So, they cast around for the secret cabals of oath-breakers in their midst.
It's stupid. The US is the most powerful country on earth. If it has something to fear from a professor at Columbia, it's in more trouble than we thought.
The fact is that ALL politicians meets and interact with hundreds and hundreds of people every year, particularly when campaigning. Anyone in public life finds himself in association with all kinds of people. "Guilt by association" is a very unreliable way to size up anyone in politics.
Groucho| 11.1.08 @ 9:37PM
If Obama's not a Muslim, why is his middle name Hussein?
ruth| 11.2.08 @ 2:28AM
There's nothing secret about the traitorous acts of the Weather Underground cabal. Their treachery was obvious for all to see.
Tom Paine| 11.2.08 @ 7:31AM
Ruth --
You should take a week off from Fox News. Go aerial wolf hunting or something. But you seem convinced that Obama was somehow involved in the Weathermen.
Just we're clear. He was not. He also is a Christian. He's also an American citizen.
If John McCain believed Obama was guilty of being a domestic terrorist, then he should have said it to his face in the debate.
How could John McCain -- indeed -- have talked about any other subject if he really believed what you are insinuating?
Please. Spare me, Ruth. You'll have to find something else besides Sean Hannity's hobbyhorse.
Robert| 11.4.08 @ 4:32PM
Could someone explain to me the overwhelming support Obama receives from the Jewish community? Obama is either suffering from delusion, bad memory, deeper psychological problems, or he is the most anti-semitic candidate ever to receive the presidential nomination of a major party.