Rashid Khalidi Columbia University adds Palestine Studies Center

Rashid Khalidi is the co-director of the new Columbia University Palestine Studies Center where he is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies. Columbia has had a Middle East Institute for over 50 years, but the new "center" for Palestine Studies is considered "the first of its kind."

Rashid Khalidi

You'll remember Khalidi:

1) recently raising funds for a Free Palestine/Support Hamas terror flotilla, named The Audacity of Hope, (named after Obama's book) in waters where Israel has the right to blockade any movement of weapons into Gaza,

2) has a friendship with White House gatecrasher Tareq Salahi (see the pic of Obama with with Salahi's long before the gatecrashing, and most infamously,

3) celebrated Palestine and the audacity of Israel at a farewell party with Barack Obama and Bill Ayers for Khalidi. There were unconfirmed talks of a "toast" to something considered inappropriate regarding Israel with Obama present. Speculation was that the toast was perhaps to the "toasting"(as in "destruction") of Israel. The Los Angeles Times has the video, and refuses to release it.

 Khalidi is a former advisor to, and spokesman for, Yassar Arafat and a former professor at the University of Chicago. Khalidi's wife Mona was the English language editor for the PLO press agency.

In 1985, Mr. Khalidi published an adulatory book on the PLO in which he personally thanked Yasser Arafat: "Permission to utilize the P.L.O. archives ... was generously given by the Chairman of the P.L.O. Executive Committee, Yasir Arafat. To him and to the dedicated individuals working in the office of the Chairman, the P.L.O. archive and the Palestine News Agency (WAFA), who extended every possible assistance to me on three trips to Tunis, I owe deep thanks."

Today, however, Mr. Khalidi distances himself from his past.

In truth, Mr. Khalidi is still spinning for the Palestinian leadership. For example, although the Palestinian Authority (PA) is ruled at the whim of a despotic Yasser Arafat, Mr. Khalidi argues the PA has an "elected leader." He asserts that Israel's government "refused to negotiate" with the PA when, in reality, Israel has formally negotiated with the PA since 1993.

Moreover, Mr. Khalidi would like us to believe that Israel has "violated every one of the seven agreements it signed with the PLO since that time." This is, of course, a transparent inversion of the truth. Source: Campus Watch

 As Khalidi departed UC to takeover Columbia's Middle East studies, Obama's attendance at a 2003 farewell party, along with Bill Ayers and wife, Bernardine Dorn, and a crowd of mostly Palestinian-Americans is well-documented. According to Los Angeles Times writer Peter Wallsten claimed that the LA Times had a copy of the video. From the National Review:

At Khalidi’s 2003 farewell party, for example, a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, “then you will never see a day of peace.”

One speaker likened “Zionist settlers on the West Bank” to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been “blinded by ideology.”

The same article says that state Senator Obama took a more measured response, suggesting that we just all get along.

As Columbia University begins the new study center, there is little said about the connection to Barack Obama or Bill Ayers or Obama's emotional commitment to the Islamic Palestine. Nevertheless, the L.A. Times article referenced above speaking of the farewell party for Khalidi, makes this argument:

But his presence at such events, as he worked to build a political base in Chicago, has led some Palestinian leaders to believe that he might deal differently with the Middle East than either of his opponents for the White House.

"I am confident that Barack Obama is more sympathetic to the position of ending the occupation than either of the other candidates," said Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow for the American Task Force on Palestine, referring to the Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that began after the 1967 war. More than his rivals for the White House, Ibish said, Obama sees a "moral imperative" in resolving the conflict and is most likely to apply pressure to both sides to make concessions.

Rashid Khalidi often speaks of the revisionist history that lends support to Israel. Speaking of revisionist history - we haven't seen anything yet, as our college students traverse through the one-way street of Khalidi's Palestinian studies.

Thanks to Weasel Zippers

Posted by Maggie@Maggie's Notebook