Israel Matzav

Sweeping Khalidi under the rug?

A few days ago, I published a piece by Bret Stephens that suggested that President Obama's views of Israel have been mostly influenced by radical Leftist Jews, particularly one rabbi, Arnold Wolf. Sunlight points me to this piece by Martin Kramer from 2009, which indicates that Wolf alone cannot be blamed and that attempting to do so is sweeping Rashid Khalidi under the rug.

But how is it possible to mention Wolf and not Rashid Khalidi, Obama’s University of Chicago colleague? Not only did Obama famously have his own “conversations” with Khalidi, but Wolf attested that his own conversations with Obama on Israel and the Palestinians were three-way, involving Khalidi. A journalist who interviewed Wolf last year wrote this:

Wolf has impressions about Obama’s initial views on Israel more than specifics, and the impression was one of sympathy for the views that he and their mutual friend, Palestinian advocate Rashid Khalidi, expressed to him on Israel—views including the need to pressure Israel to give up the West Bank. In retrospect, he believes that Obama was carefully considering their perspective rather than endorsing it. “When he was listening, we had his ear, but he didn’t come down on our side,” he reflects. “I think he was listening and learning and thinking.”

“Our side,” no less. It makes no sense to invoke Wolf’s influence without even mentioning Khalidi, because on the question of the West Bank, they were a tag-team.

That’s why writing Khalidi out of the story of Obama’s view of the settlements is absurd.

Wolf apparently passed away sometime around 2008.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Leftist Jews, Rashid Khalidi

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:30 PM