Middle East studies in the News

Obama's Connections to a Questionable Professor [on Rashid Khalidi]

by Candace de Russy
Phi Beta Cons
February 26, 2008

http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjVhNWE3Y2IzMDBjNWFlNjgxYjliYTVmMWQ3NmIwNWU=

http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/4833

WorldNetDaily reports that in the 1990s, Senator Obama attended and spoke at fundraisers for Palestinians living in what the U.N. labels refugee camps.

One such event was at the home of Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, reportedly a former PLO activist and a bitter critic of Israel. One attendee recalls:

[Obama] came with his wife. That's where I had a chance to really talk to him . . . It was an intimate setting. He convinced me he was very aware of the issues [and] critical of U.S. bias toward Israel and lack of sensitivity to Arabs.

Khalidi has reportedly made statements supportive of Palestinian terror and worked on behalf of the PLO while it was involved in anti-Western terrorism and was labeled by the State Department as a terror group.

He is also the co-founder of the Arab American Action Network, an Arab group that laments the establishment of Israel as a "catastrophe." WND has reported that the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit on which Obama served as a paid director alongside a confessed domestic terrorist, provided $75,000 in grants to the AAAN.

Khalidi held a 2000 fundraiser for Obama. Time we learn more about the senator's involvement with Islamic causes.

Note: Articles listed under "Middle East studies in the News" provide information on current developments concerning Middle East studies on North American campuses. These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of Campus Watch and do not necessarily correspond to Campus Watch's critique.

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