Running interference for Rashid

The Washington Post which has devoted an editorial to debunking Jim Corsi but never one to dispel scurrilous attacks against the Republican ticket has now come off the sidelines to weigh in on the Rashid Khalidi controversy in An ‘Idiot Wind’. (via memeorandum)

WITH THE presidential campaign clock ticking down, Sen. John McCain has suddenly discovered a new boogeyman to link to Sen. Barack Obama: a sometimes controversial but widely respected Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi. In the past couple of days, Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have likened Mr. Khalidi, the director of a Middle East institute at Columbia University, to neo-Nazis; called him “a PLO spokesman”; and suggested that the Los Angeles Times is hiding something sinister by refusing to release a videotape of a 2003 dinner in honor of Mr. Khalidi at which Mr. Obama spoke. Mr. McCain even threw former Weatherman Bill Ayers into the mix, suggesting that the tape might reveal that Mr. Ayers — a terrorist-turned-professor who also has been an Obama acquaintance — was at the dinner.

Khalidi is widely respected. However the nature of scholarship of the Middle East now is so discredited that the respect comes from those who close their eyes. Khalidi is the Edward Said professor of Arab studies at Columbia. The fact that the chair is named after a professor of humanities not a Middle Eastern scholar should say something about the nature of the appointment. Khalidi wasn’t appointed for his Middle Eastern scholarship credentials, but for his political views. While Columbia won’t share the list of those who contributed to the endowment of the chair, Greg Yardley reports:

Of course, even the most ideological pack of professors can’t hire someone to an endowed chair without securing funding. A position like Khalidi’s requires millions of dollars in dedicated endowments. We don’t know who provided these endowments, because Columbia won’t tell us. Only a couple of approximately twenty donors have publicly confirmed donations. However, even these few have disturbing connections to foreign governments. One philanthropist who donated, Rita Hauser, was connected to the Palestinian Authority by her former law firm, registered as an agent for the Palestinian Authority up until 2001. Another, the Olayan Charitable Trusts, is the American charitable arm of a Saudi Arabian corporation.

He also mentions that Martin Kramer has seen the full list of donors and reports that one is a foreign nation.

The Post scoffs at the idea that Khalidi was once a PLO spokesman, but as Kramer notes (h/t LGF):

It is worth explaining what it meant to be “deeply involved in politics in Beirut” during the civil war in Lebanon. It was not at all like community organizing in Chicago. The Lebanese state had ceased to function; the political actors were all armed militias, Lebanese and Palestinian. Every individual needed to be affiliated with such an organization, if not for bread then at least for protection. Khalidi was known to be affiliated with, and protected by, Arafat’s Fatah. A 1979 New York Times report (by Youssef Ibrahim) described Khalidi as “a professor of political science who is close to Al Fatah.” In Beirut, to be “close” to an organization meant you enjoyed its protection in return for loyalty and services rendered. Khalidi’s wife also worked as an English translator for the PLO’s press agency, Wafa. So savvy journalists knew that if they wanted the Fatah spin, they could get it from Khalidi.

Aaron Klein has more:

I also never stated anywhere as fact that Khalidi was employed by the PLO, but that he reportedly worked for the official PLO press agency WAFA in Beirut while the PLO committed scores of anti-Western attacks and was labeled by the U.S. as a terror group. Khalidi’s wife, AAAN President Mona Khalidi, was reportedly WAFA’s English translator during that period.

I fairly note Rashid Khalidi has denied working for the PLO.

Some reports of Khalidi working for WAFA and his associations with the PLO include a New York Times account by columnist Thomas L. Friedman who wrote on June 9, 1982, Khalidi was at that time “a director of the Palestinian press agency” – Wikalat al-Anba al-Filastinija, or WAFA.

In a Jan. 6, 1981, article in the Christian Science Monitor, Khalidi reportedly used the word “we” referring to the PLO.

If he wasn’t a spokesman for the PLO, he was certainly close to it. But there’s plenty to suggest that he did convey the PLO line while he was in Lebanon in 1982.

Unfortunately one of those working to undermine the charges against is Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Kramer updated his post to respond to Kampeas’s critique.

The Post also mocks the effort of the McCain campaign to obtain the video of the dinner. But as Andrew McCarthy argues, the LA Times report only gives us a taste of what went on at the dinner, clearly it wasn’t as innocuous as the Times portrays (h/t Instpundit).

Moreover, we also know that several speakers that night sang paeans to Khalidi — who regards the establishment of a Jewish state in “Palestine” as the Nakba (i.e., “The Catastrophe”) and justifies terrorist attacks against Israeli military and government targets. The Times concedes the party was a forum “where anger at Israeli and U.S. Middle East policy was freely expressed.” Yet, again, we are given only two blurbs:

[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.”

You know there was a lot more where that came from, spouted by several other speakers whom the Times story fails to name. Why not put out a transcript of what was said and by whom? And if the Times has information about what was in the commemorative book that was prepared for the occasion of Khalidi’s triumphant departure to assume the Edward Said chair at Columbia University, why not put that out too?

It’s ironic (or hypocritical or dishonest) that the Washington Post, which, two years ago, inferred all sorts of nasty stuff about then Sen. George Allen from a single comment he made is so incurious about the guy they endorsed for President. While they allow that they disagree with some of Khalidi’s views, they don’t share exactly which views they object to.

Is it that he calls Israel an “apartheid state?” Or that he justifies terror attacks against Israeli soldiers? Or that he finds it hard to say that the killing of Jews living in Judea and Samaria is wrong? These are all troubling. Look at the end of the editorial:

It’s fair to question why Mr. Obama felt as comfortable as he apparently did during his Chicago days in the company of men whose views diverge sharply from what the presidential candidate espouses. Our sense is that Mr. Obama is a man of considerable intellectual curiosity who can hear out a smart, if militant, advocate for the Palestinians without compromising his own position.

Being untroubled by the extreme views of a friend is problematic, especially for a candidate for President. Does Sen. Obama, despite public statements of support for Israel still find Khalidi’s views in any way valid? It may be convenient for the Post to ascribe this contradiction to “intellectual curiosity,” but that’s because the Post holds Sen. Obama in very high regard.

If there was evidence that Sen. McCain had attended a dinner with white supremacists five years ago, would the Post be as incurious as to what went on? Would the Post say that it was wrong to tie McCain to his dubious associates? Would the Post tell its readers to trust McCain and that he was only at the dinner to satisfy his “intellectual curiosity?”

Please also see Judeopundit.

UPDATE: It occurred to me that the Post allowed Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas – not a spokesman – the byline for an op-ed when Hamas was engaged in ongoing terror attacks against Israel two years ago. At the time, the Post’s ombudsman Deborah Howell argued that the reason for giving him the forum was to “enlighten and provoke” us. The Post credits Sen. Obama’s contact with Rashid Khalidi a one-time (and unapologetic) spokesman for the PLO to “intellectual curiosity.” It’s interesting that for the Post’s editors getting to know terrorists and their mouthpieces is a noble pursuit, but let the wrong word – like “macaca” – escape your lips and you’re unfit for public office.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.