Many others have surmised that the Los Angeles Times is running interference for Barack Obama, declining not just to provide the tape of the Rashid Khalidi goodbye event which Obama attended in 2003, but a complete transcript. It is reasonable to ask what could have been so bad about the event. What could possibly have been so objectionable about the speeches or proceedings that might concern voters at this late date?Well, the original Times report gives us only the sketchiest account. But now we have a video of a complete Khalidi lecture from June 2007. It is quite an eye-opener.
Viewers curious about the views of the man whom in 2003 Obama gave a “warm embrace” (physically or verbally?) should skip to the fifty-minute mark on the video tape. You see, Khalidi tells us, the U.S. is repeating the same error of the Cold War in pursuing its war against Islamic terrorists. According to Khalidi it is the same “blind, foolish, reductionism.” And the U.S. policy is designed according to Khalidi to “get Palestinians to destroy one another.” And on it goes.
His view of Israel? It is worse than “apartheid.” Continue to the end of the tape when he is asked about the massive Israeli media conspiracy headed by none other than Mortimer Zuckerman. He doesn’t quite buy into that, but his description of American Jews who control the money and votes to manipulate Congress sounds an awful lot like Mearsheimer and Walt’s “The Israeli Lobby.” Or General Tony McPeak for that matter.
... Rashid Khalidi's keynote address at the "Palestine: 40 Years of Occupation, 60 Years of Dispossession" conference in Portland, Oregon, on June 23, 2007:
h/t Ed Lasky
Posted by: pete penguin | Friday, 31 October 2008 at 12:22 PM