McCain Gave Money to Khalidi
One of the many recent rightwing freakouts is about the idea that the media is covering up some kind of close relationship between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi and this in turn shows, I guess, that the US is going to adopt a left-wing Arab nationalist perspective toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But Sam Stein reports:
In regards to Khalidi, however, the guilt-by-association game burns John McCain as well.
During the 1990s, while he served as chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI), McCain distributed several grants to the Palestinian research center co-founded by Khalidi, including one worth half a million dollars.
A 1998 tax filing for the McCain-led group shows a $448,873 grant to Khalidi’s Center for Palestine Research and Studies for work in the West Bank. (See grant number 5180, “West Bank: CPRS” on page 14 of this PDF.)
The relationship extends back as far as 1993, when John McCain joined IRI as chairman in January. Foreign Affairs noted in September of that year that IRI had helped fund several extensive studies in Palestine run by Khalidi’s group, including over 30 public opinion polls and a study of “sociopolitical attitudes.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with that! But it does expose some pretty massive hypocrisy on the part of the right-wing. Meanwhile, the real truth about Obama’s approach to Israel policy is that though there have been some promising signs, there have also been many moments when Obama’s been disappointingly timid on this issue. It’s an issue that calls for a dramatic substantive departure from the conventional wisdom — the tragedy of the matter, as everyone says, is that everyone more-or-less knows what a final status agreement would look like. But it is an issue that calls for boldness and the taking of some political risks under circumstances where there’s little political upside. I hope Obama’s got what it takes, and some days I even think he does. But anyone who thinks there’s a real risk of Khalidi controlling US policy toward Israel is living on some other planet.
51 Responses to “McCain Gave Money to Khalidi”
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October 29th, 2008 at 11:52 am
“some days I even think he does”
Huh.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:56 am
As someone who admires Khalidi, this makes me like McCain more.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I’m still waiting for the right wing Israel hawks to release their list of Palestinian nationalist academics with whom it’s okay to talk, meet, and associate.
October 29th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Re El Cid
Are there any Palestinian nationalist academics who do not demand that Palestinians in refugee camps be resettled in Israel as part of any settlement? Dr. Khalidi does not appear to be such an academic, based on a couple of essays of his I read. Of course, Mr. El Cid should be aware that any such academic would be disowned by the Palestinians so to them he would not be a Palestinian nationalist.
October 29th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Are there any Palestinian nationalist academics who do not demand that Palestinians in refugee camps be resettled in Israel as part of any settlement? Dr. Khalidi does not appear to be such an academic, based on a couple of essays of his I read.
You haven’t read those essays very carefully:
“Rashid Khalidi–emphasizing what he terms “attainable” (rather than “absolute”) justice–suggests that while “it must be accepted that all Palestinian refugees and their descendants have a right to return to their homes in principle…” it must be “equally accepted that in practice force majeure will prevent most of them from being able to exercise this right.”[2]”
http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/mepp/new_prrn/background/background_resolving.htm#a
October 29th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Re Peter H
Mr. Peter Hs’ statement makes no difference. No Israeli government will agree to any such thing and no pressure from Obama or anybody else will cause them to alter this position, unless he’s planning to send in the 3rd armored division. In other words, it ain’t going to happen.
October 29th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
SLC writes:
I assume you’d like to conclude from this that all Palestinian nationalists are beyond the pale. To me, it implies the exact opposite. i.e. since all Palestinian nationalists are required to pro-forma support the right-of-return, its utterly useless as a distinction between “radical” Palestinian nationalists and “acceptable” ones.
I assume Mr. SLC doesn’t consider every US presidential candidate pro-Israel simply because they all profess (of necessity) a deep love for Israel. Just apply the same standard to Palestinian academics and come up with a more reasonable standard for why Khalidi is unacceptable, other than whatever standard boilerplate he may say about Palestinian refugees.
October 29th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
The wingnuts’ tresatment of Khalidi demonstrates just how hollow their pretext of supporting democratic reform in the Arab world really is.
They’re interested in hegemony, military and economic, and “spreading democracy” is just a brand name.
If they were actually interested in promoting democratic reform, someone like Khalidi would be their poster boy. Instead, they pick people like Chalabi.
October 29th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Point proven even here.
Actual Israeli citizens, who are much braver and decent than the craven, nasty hawks in the U.S. who insist that Israel’s policies must be ever hawkish, are proud to meet, associate with, and work alongside Palestinian academics who support Palestinian nation-hood and who oppose the Israeli occupation.
So the answer is clear, immediate, and cowardly: any Palestinian nationalist not cleared first by right wing Israeli militarist hawks is beyond the pale.
So, no, SLC, don’t ask me: Ask yourself. You either declare all Palestinian academic nationalists outside the pale, or you give a list of the 1, or 2, or 5 you find acceptable.
October 29th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
The LA times should release a tape or transcript, however.
As for this:
I take it you mean a one state solution, with the native arabs returning in their homes, and the de-privileging of the jewish colonials, right? Like South Africa and French Algeria?
This is one of those ‘as everyone says’ claims like the famous ‘everyone I know voted for Hoover’.
October 29th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
So no Israeli government would accept a deal that said the Palestinians have the right to return, but the Palestinians agree to waive that right (in return for cash and whatnot)? When you talk about the Palestinians needing to give up the right of return, you’re talking about it as a precondition to negotiating. It hasn’t worked in Iran, it won’t work in Israel. Unless ‘not working’ is actually your goal.
October 29th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Re DJ
1. It’s Dr. SLC.
2. Hey, I don’t make the rules. Palestinians do not consider a Palestinian academic who accepts the fact that refugees aren’t going to be resettled in Israel to be a Palestinian nationalist. As an example, consider John Zogby who is an American of Palestinian descent who, unlike most such individuals has actually lived in Israel for an extended period of time. Most Palestinian academic nationalists have disowned Mr. Zogby who has the temerity to have decided that the demand of resettlement is a deal killer.
Re El Cid
In response to Mr. DJ, I cited John Zogby who is disowned by most Palestinian academic nationalists. I don’t consider Mr. Zogby to be beyond the pale, his fellow Palestinians do.
Re otto
The one state solution to the Palestinian issue will only occur in the event that the Kach party takes over in Israel and imposes an Eichmann solution on the Palestinians. Otherwise, the status quo will probably prevail into the indefinite future, where Mr. otto the kraut likes it or not.
October 29th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
But anyone who thinks there’s a real risk of Khalidi controlling US policy toward Israel is living on some other planet.</I.
Not that it would necessarily be a bad thing if he did, except to the right-wing American nationalists who believe somehow that a right-wing view of Israel’s vital interests is a view we should adopt of our own interests in the Middle East.
This faux controversy is a joke. I’m amused by the number for right-wing bloggers who have never heard of Khalidi before who now suddenly in a span of days have decided that Khalidi is a terrorist member of the PLO because he is more sympathetic to the Palestinians than the Israelis, and that because he was in a room with Obama at some point this only support their lunatic idea that Obama is himself a secret Muslim/terrorist/Israel hater. This is exactly the reason that the party of these idiots cannot be trusted to handle foreign affairs for this nation; everything is black and white, peace is weakness, and every foreign conflict MUST be viewed through the lens of domestic political considerations. People like this are the reason nations fail.
October 29th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Why? Khalidi’s formulation, while requiring Israel to acknowledge the right of return allows them to freely reject all refugees who desire to do so. Since that conforms to the opinion of virtually the entire world outside of the conflict – that Palestinians have the right to return, but it just isn’t possible to let them – what is the problem?
October 29th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
So the LA Times could end all the buzz by just releasing the video, right? I can only imagine the fury on the left if Fox had some video of McCain at a dinner with an equally controversial figure, and they proceeded to stonewall it.
October 29th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
I quit. So now it’s ok for McCain to have “associations” with khalidi… but not Obama?
And today Palin told a crowd that Joe the plumber was a veteran and a native Alaskan… he’s neither.
I guess we can just make stuff up now. What’s next? Obama and Osama bin Laden are Kenyan socialist terrorist cousins?
October 29th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Well there’s a whole bunch on the table for whomever getting elected–economy, health care, energy/environment, but domestically it would take a genius to untangle the immigration situation, a greater genius to facilitate a two state solution between Israel and Palestine. One has to feel for Senator Obama: while with McCain the only expectation is the past four years plus some earmark reform, Sarah Palin preaching to the choir, all done in illtemper with a Senate and Congress that will resent him profoundly on both sides of the aisle, for Obama, nothing less than untangling every remaining Gordian knot in our nation and the world will satisfy.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Njorl,
I don’t have a dog in this fight, being neither Jewish nor Muslim, nor do I have any particular love for the state of Israel. However, the idea of a Palestinian ‘right of return’ is absurd. There are simply too many Palestinians to allow them all to return without diluting the Jewish nature of the state of Israel. If you support the right of return, then de facto you support the abolition of the State of Israel, every bit as much as Ahmadinejad.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Meet Barack, who’s lived most everywhere,
From Zanzibar to Barclay Square.
Osama’s only seen the sights.
A boy can see from Afghan Heights —
What a crazy pair!
But they’re cousins,
Identical cousins all the way.
One pair of matching bookends,
Different as night and day.
(I’m even older than previously thought)
October 29th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Hector,
That’s the whole point of the “Force majeure” caveat. Palestinians have the right of return. It is not practical, so they can’t. He isn’t asking for Israel to be overrun by Palestinians. He’s asking for Israel to essentially say, “We screwed the Palestinians, but we can’t undo what’s been done.”
October 29th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Just to add to my last comment…
This is similar to the US position on Native Americans. We screwed them big time. We broke treaties, started aggressive wars against them, stole land etc. We admit it was wrong. We are not going to give the land back.
October 29th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
SLC: “No Israeli government will agree to any such thing and no pressure from Obama or anybody else will cause them to alter this position, unless he’s planning to send in the 3rd armored division.”
Or unless the world institutes a full boycott of all Israeli goods and services – and possibly a blockade of Israeli ports, the same as the Zionist freakazoids are recommending for Iran. Which, since Israel is so tiny, means the country’s economy would collapse within ninety days.
As for sending in the 3rd Armored, personally I prefer that approach since Israel needs to be forcibly disarmed of its nuclear arsenal as well. Israel wants to complain? Fine – we’ll match your 250 warheads on a ten to one basis. See who wins that game…
Hector: “If you support the right of return, then de facto you support the abolition of the State of Israel, every bit as much as Ahmadinejad.”
Exactly. And that’s precisely what needs to happen. The state of Israel needs to be abolished, the 1947 partition and the US recognition of the state of Israel needs to be reconsidered, and a binational state of Palestine recognized, comprising both Palestinians and Israelis.
And any Israeli who doesn’t like that can get his ass back to New York – no doubt to the disgust of SLC who claims to hate Israelis – or Germany (which, since there are more Israeli emigrants to Germany than there are Jews emigrating TO Israel, is very likely.)
Otherwise, the remaining option left is for some terrorist to get smart and nuke Tel Aviv with one of Israel’s OWN NUKES. You gonna like that option better?
October 30th, 2008 at 3:08 am
There really needs to be a debate about what is the real strategic worth of the United States unquestioning support of Israel. So far strong American support for Israel has been detrimental for both countries strategic interests in that there is no lasting truce to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Also by silencing voices such as Khalidi by labeling them as terrorist inspired, the US blinds itself to the views of the vast majority of the Arab population which then turn makes Arabs have strongly anti-American feelings. Finally Khalidi is not that radical of a scholar since he has been very critical of the Palestinian leadership in the forties and fifties for not being pragmatic enough to sign a agreement with Israel.
October 30th, 2008 at 3:22 am
“There really needs to be a debate about what is the real strategic worth of the United States unquestioning support of Israel”
The strategic worth of the United States unquestioning support of Israel is the same as the real strategic worth of the United States unquestioning support of South Africa, and of French unquestioning support of French Algeria, when those policies were in place.
October 30th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Re Njori
1. Just to be fair about this, I don’t see any evidence that Mr. Khalidi is in bed with terrorist organizations such as Hamas so, in the absence of such evidence, such accusations appear over the top.
2. The problem is that Mr. Khalidi is demanding that Israel accept full responsibility for the Palestinian refugee problem and agree that the Palestinians in refugee camps have a right to be resettled in Israel with the proviso that they will somehow not be allowed to do so. The problem is that this proposition is seriously in error. Just to remind everybody what happened in 1948, the surrounding Arab countries refused to accept the establishment of the State of Israel and moved their military forces against that country. As a part of this military action, they broadcast over their state controlled radio stations advice to Arab Palestinians to evacuate communities that would be affected by military actions. Thus, as a bare minimum, these Arab governments must share the blame for the situation that we have now. Of course, after the Arab military action ended in defeat, the Israeli Government at that time took advantage of the situation and prevented those evacuees from returning. The fact is that, if the Arab governments at the time had agreed to accept the formation of the State of Israel, most of those refugees would not now be living in camps in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.
3. The expansion of the State of Israel from the partition agreement to the current Green Line and the occurrence of the refugee camps is one of the consequences of the Arab nations at the time losing a war of aggression. As an example, Germany lost the 2nd World war and as a result lost East Prussia and Pomerania to Poland with several hundred thousand ethnic Germans being displaced from ancestral homes therein. In addition, some 2 million ethnic Germans were ousted from the Sudetenland and became refugees. As another example, Mexico, as a result of losing the US-Mexican war, lost New Mexico, Arizona, and California to the US, with the difference that it was the US who was the aggressor in that war.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Significant numbers fled before any such announcements, and many also fled after the fighting stopped. The flight to avoid the violence of the invasion accounts for less than half of the refugees.
Would Israel accept that half the refugees have the right of return, which will not be allowed anyway? Regardless of what percentage of refugees have a right of return that will not be allowed, I wouldn’t expect any concession from Israel on such a rhetorical point before more meaningful matters are settled. It is a concession that would decrease Israel’s bargaining power rather than enhance it. The only point of such a concession would be to empower Palestinian leaders to convince their own people to accept more substantitive agreements on borders, peace and the fate of Jerusalem.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Re Njori
Significant numbers fled before any such announcements, and many also fled after the fighting stopped. The flight to avoid the violence of the invasion accounts for less than half of the refugees.
1. What is the source of this information? However, is Mr. Njori now stating that those who fled before the fighting started and those who fled after the fighting ended are entitled to be resettled in Israel but those who fled during the fighting do not have such an entitlement?
2. What makes Mr. Njori think that telling the refugees in camps that they have a right to resettle in Israel but that they will not be allowed to do so will cause them to accept such a settlement?
October 30th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I believe the issue with the tapes has less to do with the association and more with what Obama said there. Someone who reportedly saw the tape says that Obama:
He congratulates Khalidi for his work saying “Israel has no God-given right to occupy Palestine” plus there’s been “genocide against the Palestinian people by Israelis.”
This is the real issue and calls into question Obama’s stated support for Israel. Given his association with other antisemites it is reasonable to want to know what he said there, not who he was with though if he were with Bill Ayers it would show him as a liar as well.
What did he say?
October 30th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
The Obama mafia says that the Obama-Khalidi association really isn’t any big deal. Otherwise, why would John McCain have given over $400,000 to a Palestinian group that Khalidi worked with?
It’s true that McCain distributed several grants, including one worth about half a million dollars, to the Center for Palestine Research and Studies, or CPRS, a West Bank organization once associated with Khalidi.
What the 0-bots fail to mention is that CPRS is pro-Western and can be characterized as pro-Israel.
Khalidi left CPRS. The Khalidi organization Obama helped fund as a board member for a nonprofit, alongside domestic terrorist William Ayers, has taken a flagrantly anti-Israel line. Khalidi’s Arab American Action Network has hosted scores of Israel-bashing events, including at least one reportedly attended by Obama.
October 31st, 2008 at 7:30 am
Huh?? McCain led a group that gave money to an organization of Khalidi that was performing some good work for the Palestinians 10 years ago. You’re trying to equate that with Obama praising Khalidi at an event after he made anti Israel remarks ( supposedly according to this supressed tape ). Please, you can come up with something better than that.
October 31st, 2008 at 10:37 am
SLC,
“The Emigration of the Arabs of Palestine in the Period 1/12/1947/- 1/6/1948″ IDF intelligence report written June 30, 1948 details expulsions and flight of well over 300,000 Palestinians without any connection to orders from outside Arab militaries or governments. Some of these refugees left on orders from local Arab authorities, but it was in direct response to imminent perceived or real danger.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:15 pm
McCain gave NO money to Khalidi.
IRI gave money to CPRS
There is NO evidence Khalidi had anything to do with CPRS in 1998, and scant evidence that Khalidi was ever part of CPRS.
But please don’t let facts get in your way.
Go ahead, search Khalidi and CPRS 1993-2000.
Go ahead!
October 31st, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Here is the page of the CPPRS
http://www.pcpsr.org/about/names.html
You’ll note the members.
None of them are Rashid Khalidi.
There is however, an Ahmad Mubarak Khalidi.
Next time, kids, HOMEWORK FIRST.
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