Rashid Khalidi: 'The Audacity of Hope'

Andy McCarthy has some bizarre news regarding Obama and his buddy, Rashid Khalidi.

Do you recall Rashid Khalidi?

Remember the matter of the Los Angeles Times refusing to release the tape of Obama honoring Khalidi?

Why is the Los Angeles Times sitting on a videotape of the 2003 farewell bash in Chicago at which Barack Obama lavished praise on the guest of honor, Rashid Khalidi — former mouthpiece for master terrorist Yasser Arafat?

At the time Khalidi, a PLO adviser turned University of Chicago professor, was headed east to Columbia. There he would take over the University’s Middle East-studies program (which he has since maintained as a bubbling cauldron of anti-Semitism) and assume the professorship endowed in honor of Edward Sayyid, another notorious terror apologist.

The party featured encomiums by many of Khalidi’s allies, colleagues, and friends, including Barack Obama, then an Illinois state senator, and Bill Ayers, the terrorist turned education professor. It was sponsored by the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), which had been founded by Khalidi and his wife, Mona, formerly a top English translator for Arafat’s press agency.

Is there just a teeny-weenie chance that this was an evening of Israel-bashing Obama would find very difficult to explain? Could it be that the Times, a pillar of the Obamedia, is covering for its guy?

Read the rest of McCarthy's 2008 piece on the event. He excerpts the LA Times' coverage of the story:

A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.

His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."...

The LA Times has yet to release the tape.

In terms of being a friend and staunch ally of Israel, Obama hasn't walked the walk.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Obama wouldn't talk the talk at a private affair honoring his friend, Khalidi.

Here's video from 2008.



No doubt a JournoList sort of cabal is keeping Rashid Khalidi under wraps to help Obama the way they did with Jeremiah Wright.

So what's the news about Khalidi?

McCarthy writes:

President Obama's good friend, former PLO mouthpiece Rashid Khalidi, is back in the news. He has signed an appeal for funds to outfit another ship that, like the "peace flotilla," would try to break Israel's blockade of Gaza, the territory controlled by Hamas — the foreign terrorist organization that is the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian arm.

The ship would be called — wait for it — The Audacity of Hope.

That is incredible.

Read more about Khalidi and the appeal posted at USTOGAZA.org.

We turn to you to help make the U.S. boat, The Audacity of Hope, a reality. We must raise at least $370,000 in the next month. These funds will be used to purchase a boat large enough for 40-60 people, secure a crew, and cover the licensing and registering of the boat. In addition, the funds will subsidize some other costs of sending a U.S. delegation.

It's sick that this group is naming its boat The Audacity of Hope.

Apparently, the group hopes to capitalize on Obama's pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel position to raise cash. Obviously, a blockade-busting boat wouldn't be named The Audacity of Hope if those apt to donate to the cause weren't aware that Obama is on board with the effort in spirit.

McCarthy goes on to note that in the LA Times' 2003 report some information was withheld from the public.

As the report does not relate, Obama and Khalidi's mutual friends, the former Weather Underground terrorists turned professors Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, were also reportedly in attendance. (When Obama and Ayers teamed up to dole out money at the Leftist Woods Fund, a $75,000 grant was given to the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) founded by Khalidi and his wife, Mona. Mona Khalidi has also signed the appeal for money to support The Audacity of Hope voyage. The AAAN regards Israel as illegitimate and has sought to justify Palestinian terrorism.) As I mentioned in the 2008 column, the Weathermen's 1974 manifesto, Prairie Fire, is rabidly anti-Israel and demands that the U.S. get out of the Middle East, etc.

Same old, same old. The lib media continue their blackout on Obama's radical buddies. The LA Times continues to sit on the videotape.

McCarthy writes:

The United States has neutrality laws against things like fitting, furnishing or arming vessels with the intent of committing hostile acts against a country with which the U.S. is at peace. (Challenging a blockade is a hostile act.) We also have laws against providing material support to terrorist organizations like Hamas. Will the Obama Justice Department pursue an investigation of Khalidi?

If Eric Holder and the Obama Justice Department won't even pursue an investigation of the New Black Panther Party and its intimidation of voters at a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day 2008, I'd say the chances of the DOJ investigating Khalidi are very slim.

A boat to aid Hamas and break the blockade named The Audacity of Hope is just another slap in the face to Israel.

Show us the tape, LA Times. A public viewing is long overdue. Why doesn't Obama himself encourage its release? Something to hide?