Did Obama advisers meet with Hamas pre-election?
And are they meeting with them now? Hinderaker at Power Line Blog just posted reference to a story published yesterday in Al-Hayat, a London-based Arabic-language newspaper. The report indicates that a secret meeting was held between Obama advisers and Dr. Ahmad Yousef, a political adviser to the prime minister of the Hamas-led government. Other discussions happened online via the Internet.
David Hornik at Pajamas Media has a detailed report.
In an interview published Tuesday in the London-based Al-Hayat, Dr. Ahmad Yousef, political adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said senior Hamas figures had held a secret meeting with advisers to Barack Obama in Gaza before the U.S. elections.
Throughout his campaign Obama’s official line was that he would “only talk with Hamas if it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel’s right to exist, and agrees to abide by past agreements.” …
According to Yousef in the Al-Hayat interview, the Obama-Hamas talks were already ongoing during the U.S. election campaign: “We were in contact with a number of Obama’s aides through the Internet, and later met with some of them in Gaza, but they advised us not to reveal this information as it may influence the elections or become manipulated by McCain’s campaign.”
Yousef also claimed he personally had friendly relations with some of Obama’s advisers and that “Haniyeh will draft a congratulatory letter to Obama for his victory.”
Well isn’t that nice.
So, a couple of good questions for the next Obama news conference…
- Were discussions going on between Obama advisers and Hamas leaders prior to and leading up to the election on Nov. 4? If not, are you calling Yousef a liar?
- If conversations did take place, what were the logistics of the discussions? Were they in person? Over the Internet via e-mail?
- If discussions did take place, who were the Obama advisers involved?
- Is there a difference between your (Obama’s) public statements – requiring Hamas to renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel’s right to exist, and agree to abide by past agreements prior to talks – and your under-the-table actions led by advisers?
Hinderaker sums it all up.
It would have been nice to know about the cordial relationship between Obama’s advisers and Hamas during the campaign. But, of course, it was an article of faith in the mainstream media that Obama’s many unsavory and radical associations were somehow irrelevant to any expectation as to how he would govern as President.
6 Comments
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The audacity of hope, the audacity of Obama. Is anyone who was paying attention really surprised? Outraged maybe, but that got us nowhere before the election and it'll get us nowhere now. So what to do?
Addendum: Wonder how many of those e-mail contacts also led to campaign donations?
Time to brush off the parsing skills:
"Throughout his campaign Obama’s official line was that he would “only talk with Hamas if it renounces terrorism, ……."
It says HE won't meet with Hamas, but there is no mention of what his staff will do. Just like Biden never met with lobbyists, but his staff did.
See? I did get something from Bill Clinton: the ability to read between the lines of political speech!
.How evil .Obama adviser may have talked with the most evil dispicable two headed fire breathing demons on the face of the earth.Even worse he may have said he would not have prior to well Gotcha gotcha gotcha..Let us not forget We talked and made piece with Momar Gadafi. We talked and possible made piece with Mr kim from North Korea. We talked with certain groups and paid them a lot of money a lot in Irag for piece. It is being reported we as a nation may sit down and make piece with the Taliban and lets also remember we are under President Bushes Direction installing a not an embassy embassy information office in Iran.We sat down and talked for decades and never went to war with Russsia. If this talk leads to one less person dieing be it an American solider a Isrealian or a Palinstenia then TALK TALK TALK. Also keep this in mind they were willing to talk with us also implying they want piece and want to come to a fair an honest agreement and for the last 8 years it has been a policy of let them war and the victor will make the rules for piece well not happening .The missels still fly and two major wars were faught and death still rules the land so why not give peace a chance war has not settled anything.
@Gary,
You may have missed the point of my post. First, he was not even the president-elect when these meetings happened. That is a serious breach in foreign relations policy.
What if Obama's presidency completely tanks and Sarah Palin starts traveling abroad and meeting with foreign leaders (covertly) trying to "fix" things and it was leaked to the press? Talk about an uproar; and quite certainly Obama staffers would be discussing treason charges.
Second, Obama specifically said (in public) that Hamas would have to prove themselves worthy of "talks" by renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel’s right to exist, and agreeing to abide by past agreements.
None of that has happened, but still this activity continues.
This is not a discussion as to if we should talk or not. It's a discussion concerning how Obama will lead in the future by looking at his previous actions.
No Steve.I did understand your point and thank you for taking the time to post it.I just do not care.It is going to be 4+ years of Gotcha and to me this is just one more case.I believe i your heart you feel I should be horrified and disgusted by this and I am not.I also hear you load and clear when you say he said this in public to make me want to be more troubled but yet I still am not.I heard on FOX news last night that someone is comparing Mr. Obama to President Reagan and was there not a story of him doing something similiar like some said asking to hold American's hostage till he became President.But lets think postive for a second and maybe this will lead to some sort of peaceful resolution of hostilitys between Isreali and Palistine and then the all the Muslim countries in the area who are all seeking a fair and honest solution to there differences.As I understand it there are securet talks going on all over the place and some day we may even see a joint Isrealing and Saudi attack on Iran's nuke facilities. So lets hope and pray for God guidence and Give peace a chance.