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Obama/Hamas

Big Muddy rancher

Well-known member
oo Many Feet In The Fire #03

I fired him. No, wait! I didn't fire him because he didn't work for me. He was actually a volunteer until he resigned. It was May of 2008 and obviously Obama had been caught without his TelePrompTer again. Caught like a deer in the headlights, he blinked repeatedly and cleared his throat with a rapid succession of ahhhmms and uuhhhs.

Obama was being questioned about his decision to select Robert Malley as senior advisor on his foreign-policy team. Anyone who had been around more than eight years knew Robert Malley as the former special assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs for President Clinton (1998-2201). But they also knew that Malley was well known for his anti-Isreal sentiment and often advocated relationships with Hamas, Hezbollah and others.

So, when the Washington Times picked up the story that Robert Malley admitted he had been meeting with Hamas for some time, the sparks between Obama and McCain flew. An Obama spokesman, Ben LaBolt immediately came out with this statement, “Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future.”

Obama accused McCain of "smears" and said McCain "was losing his bearings," reiterating his position that Hamas was a terrorist organization that should not be negotiated with.

Robert Malley quickly tried to minimize the damage to Obama's campaign by telling the press that his repeated meetings with Hamas were not on Obama's behalf but on behalf of a resolution think-tank, the International Crisis Group. (What the times doesn't tell you is that one of the sponsors who sits on the board of CGI, and is an Obama backer, is George Soros. Other members of this group are Zbigniew Brzenzenski and former general Wesley Clark).

Of course, it didn't help Obama's denials when on the eve of Jimmy Carter's meeting with Hamas in April, Ahmed Yousuf, a spokesman for the terrorist group Hamas, endorsed Barack Obama. Again, Obama was caught in the cross hairs and came out with a statement that he opposed Carter's meeting with Hamas. But Yousuf simply shrugged it off as a political side step, stating in an interview with WorldNetDaily, "I understand American politics and this is the season for elections and everybody tries to sound like he's a friend of the Israelis ... so whatever [the] Israelis didn't like they will take from all those candidates."

According to Aaron Klein, of WorldNetDaily, Yousuf again confirmed meetings with Obama aides and representatives. Yousuf told the media that he had been asked to keep the contacts secret until Obama won the election. Now that he had won, Yousuf spoke freely in the following statements; "We were in contact with a number of Obama's aides through the Internet, and later met with some of them in Gaza, but they advised us not to come out with any statements, as they may have a negative effect on his election campaign and be used by Republican candidate John McCain (to attack Obama).". Yousuf said Hamas's contact with Obama's advisers was ongoing, adding that relations were maintained after Obama's electoral victory last Tuesday."
Shortly after the interview with Yousuf, one of Obama's senior foreign policy adviser, Denis McDonough, told the Jerusalem Post, "This assertion is just plain false."

What happened to Robert Malley? Despite the fact the Obama campaign denied that Malley was working in any official capacity for Obama during his trips, Malley resigned in May 2008 amid the negative press. Why did his involvement set off a fire storm among the Jewish community?

A Harvard trained lawyer and Rhodes Scholar, Robert Malley is the son of Simon Malley, who was key in the Egyptian Communist Party, a close friend of Yasser Arafat and a passionate hater of Israel. It would appear that his son followed in his footsteps, writing numerous opinion pieces that blame Israel for the failure of the peace process. Malley also advises the US and nations around the world to negotiate with Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah and to send financial aid to the Hamas government in Gaza. [FrontPageMag.Com, John Perazzo]

WHY is all of this important? Not more than two days passed after Obama won the election, his first act of diplomacy was to send Robert Malley to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Obama wanted to assure these two leaders that his new administration would take more account in their interests, than President Bush had.[Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com]

To summarize, Obama added Robert Malley to his foreign advisory team in 2007 but denied his capacity in May of 2008, only after it became public. Malley met in repeated meetings with Hamas, while Obama denounced any negotiations with them. Although Malley was not representing Obama (according to him), but representing a George Soros group, he resigned from the Obama campaign in May. As soon as people were no longer paying attention...er...I mean as soon as Obama won, he brought Malley back on the team that he was never a part of and sent him to Syria and Egypt.

Where's the lie? Note his aides earlier statement, " He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future.”
If in fact, Obama did or was involved in any negotiations with Hamas, as a state senator, he would clearly be guilty of violating "The Logan Act." (The Logan Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 953, states:
Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without
authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any
correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or
agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States,
or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or
imprisoned not more than three years, or both.)

This is not the only time that as a senator, Barack Obama has been accused of violating the Logan Act, as I will explain in later installments.
 
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