The Clinton Tapes: 'We should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win'

From an Israeli perspective, what is perhaps the most interesting leak comes not from Wikileaks, but rather from the release of an old-fashioned audio cassette with a 2006 interview with Hillary Clinton.

The tape is 45 minutes and contains much that is no longer relevant, such as analysis of the re-election battle that Sen. Joe Lieberman was then facing in Connecticut. But a seemingly throwaway remark about elections in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority has taken on new relevance amid persistent accusations in the presidential campaign by Clinton’s Republican opponent Donald Trump that the current election is “rigged.”

Speaking to the Jewish Press about the January 25, 2006, election for the second Palestinian Legislative Council (the legislature of the Palestinian National Authority), Clinton weighed in about the result, which was a resounding victory for Hamas (74 seats) over the U.S.-preferred Fatah (45 seats).

“I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake,” said Sen. Clinton. “And if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win.”

The sentiment is not surprising. In 2011, former Bush National Security aide Elliott Abrams told the Jerusalem Post that the 'Palestinian Authority' sought to call off the 2006 'Palestinian' elections, and the reason it didn't happen was that they insisted on blaming Israel. 

According to Abrams, the Palestinians seized on the voting in Jerusalem as a possible pretext to cancel the elections, since this issue has been debated amid questions of how and where Palestinians would vote.

“The Palestinians said to Sharon, ‘Why don’t you say no voting in Jerusalem. Zero. Not in the post offices [where voting was allowed in 1995]. Zero. And this will be a reason to call off the election.’”

Sharon, according to Abrams, “said he was not going to take the blame for this. He said, ‘If you want to call off the elections, call off the election, I don’t care. If you want to have an election, great; if you want to call off the election, great. But you do it – I’m not taking the blame for it.’” The Palestinians, Abrams said, then came to the Americans with a request that they call off the elections.

The American reaction was that the US doesn’t call off elections just a few days before they are scheduled, “because it looks like you’re not going to win anymore. That’s ridiculous.

Your job is to win the election, go out and work, and get your people to the polls and win the damn election. So the election was held, and Hamas won.”

Of course, it was 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen who insisted that Hamas participate in that election in the first place.... And by the way, after the election, there were discussions over the possibility of Hamas being expelled from the 'Palestinian Authority.' So Hillary's statement about making sure that Fatah won the election was practically mainstream thought back then.

But there's something else on that audio tape that's even more significant.

Regarding capturing combatants in war—the June capture of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas militants who came across the Gaza border via an underground tunnel was very much front of mind—Clinton can be heard on the tape saying, “And then, when, you know, Hamas, you know, sent the terrorists, you know, through the tunnel into Israel that killed and captured, you know, kidnapped the young Israeli soldier, you know, there’s a sense of like, one-upsmanship, and in these cultures of, you know, well, if they captured a soldier, we’ve got to capture a soldier.”

Equating Hamas, which to this day remains on the State Department’s official list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, with the armed forces of a close American ally was not what many expected to hear in the Jewish Press editorial offices, which were then at Third Avenue and Third Street in Brooklyn. (The paper’s office has since moved to the Boro Park section of Brooklyn.) The use of the phrase “these cultures” is also a bit of a head-scratcher.

In other words, Hillary equates Israel with Hamas. That ought to bother you all a lot more than whether she thought the 'Palestinian election' should be rigged.