In the last few days, opponents of Barack Obama have attempted to resurrect, from a slightly different angle, the Rashid Khalidi smear first attempted months ago by Sean Hannity.

In April 2008, the Los Angeles Times ran this story about Barack Obama’s relationship with the Palestinian community.  In that story, the Times reported on a 2003 dinner held in Rashid Khalidi’s honor, before he departed the University of Chicago for a new position at Columbia.  Barack Obama attended the dinner, at which he said nice things about Khalidi and some other attendees said some not-so-nice things about Israel.

The Times was able to report about this dinner because they found a source who was willing to tell them about it, and even to provide a videotape of the event, on the condition that they not reveal his or her identity and not release the tape, presumably because people who attended the dinner would be able to deduce the identity of the person who released it.

Back in April, the Times was criticized for running this article by supporters of Barack Obama, who claimed that the article was biased against him.

Fast forward to the end of October, when the McCain campaign is in dire straights and throwing everything including the kitchen sink at Obama in a last-ditch attempt to turn the race around.  In addition to once again demonizing Khalidi (which we’ve already dealt with in our earlier article and address again below), McCain’s supporters are now claiming that the Times is “hiding something” and “protecting Obama” by refusing to release the videotape.

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You may have had a chance to see a video in which Sean Hannity of Fox News tries to paint Senator Barack Obama as anti-Israel on the grounds that he knows Prof. Rashid Khalidi, currently the Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University.

Here are a few things that Hannity hides from us in this video: (more…)

In an article in the Electric Intifada, Ali Abuminah has a photo of Obama at an Edward Said Lecture, and says

Over the years since I first saw Obama speak I met him about half a dozen times, often at Palestinian and Arab-American community events in Chicago including a May 1998 community fundraiser at which Edward Said was the keynote speaker. In 2000, when Obama unsuccessfully ran for Congress I heard him speak at a campaign fundraiser hosted by a University of Chicago professor. On that occasion and others Obama was forthright in his criticism of US policy and his call for an even-handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

However, it is no crime to be at a lecture by Edward Said, who was a respected professor and eloquent author at Columbia University. What Ali Abuminah says, from his hard position as a representative of the Palestinian Resistance, is essentially that Obama has been in the mainstream of Democratic party with respect to the conflict. The mainstream was more progressive before Bush/Sharon and 9/11. Since 2002, Obama has taken a harder and harder position against the use of violence on civilians by groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as solidifying his backing for Israel. It is clear that Obama is completely in line with mainstream American and Jewish thought on the two-state solution to the conflict. Please read his position and factsheet on Israel.