Posted by
J-GOP on Thursday, February 28, 2008 8:21:02 PM
Jewish voters need to take note of two separate stories that are circulating the Internet that demonstrate Senator Barack Obama would be a Pro-Palestinian President should he ascend to the office. Senator Obama's views on Israel and the Middle East should certainly raise serious doubts and questions in Jewish voter's minds about the true leanings of Senator Obama on these important issues.
First, there was presidential candidate Ralph Nader's appearance on the NBC news program "Meet the Press". During his interview, Nader said that Sen. Obama had reversed his positions on Israel. Nader said Sen. Obama's "better instincts and his knowledge have been censored by himself" and that Sen. Obama was "pro-Palestinian when he was in Illinois before he ran for the state Senate" and "during the state Senate."
Sen. Obama has caught criticism for pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel statements and sentiments before. In March 2007, Sen. Obama was criticized for saying that "Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinians." Obama has also been criticized for stocking his campaign with several controversial advisors including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Robert Malley, Samantha Power and Susan Rice all who have taken anti-Israeli stances in the past.
Then there's an article that appeared in today's edition of The Jewish Press indicating Obama served as a paid director on the board of a nonprofit organization that granted funding to a controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a "catastrophe." The article goes on to indicate that Obama has also reportedly spoken at fundraisers for Palestinians living in what the United Nations terms refugee camps.
In 2001, the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit that describes itself as a group helping the disadvantaged, provided a $40,000 grant to the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN. The Fund provided a second grant to AAAN for $35,000 in 2002. Obama was a director of the Woods Fund board from 1999 to Dec. 11, 2002, according to the Fund’s website. According to tax filings, Obama received compensation of $6,000 per year for his service in 1999 and 2000. The $40,000 grant from the Woods Fund to AAAN constituted about a fifth of the group’sreported grants for 2001, also according to tax filings. The $35,000 Woods Fund grant in 2002 made up about one-fifth of AAAN’s reported grants for that year as well.
Concerning Obama’s role in funding AAAN, the co-founder of the Arab group, Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, who is a harsh critic of Israel and reportedly worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization, claimed he "never heard of the Woods Fund until it popped up on a bunch of blogs a few months ago." He terminated the interview with The Jewish Press when pressed further about his links with Obama.
So despite all the verbal distancing that Obama has made recently about his affiliation with the anti-semitic Rev. Farrakan, "facts are damned things" as the old saying goes. These facts should give prospective Democratic Jewish voters a great deal of pause come November.