Link:
During an interview on WABC radio Sunday, top Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef said the terrorist group supports Obama’s foreign policy vision. “We don’t mind–actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle, and he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community but not with domination and arrogance,†Yousef said in response to a question about the group’s willingness to meet with either of the Democratic presidential candidates.
Word has it that al-Qaeda’s al-Zawahiri is withholding his organization’s endorsement until after the Pennsylvania primary. However the terror chief has stated,
“We are very interested in the primaries. My cave which is home to 15 people is for Obama, my wives and my children are pro- Obama. As a leader of the world’s most notorious terrorist group, I would not disclose who I am rooting for but I leave you to make that guess.”
{ 17 comments }
Maybe an ignorance of history is now universal amongst the chattering class.
If Mr Yuosef understood some of the foreign policies that Kennedy actually carried out, I suspect he wouldn’t be so quick to hope for a modern day successor…
Its actually very interesting, and not in a partisan good or bad way, that Ahmed Yousef said that. He’s an interesting character. Hails from the political wing of Hamas, and is rather saavy about using American political vehicles to advance his agenda. For example he wrote this oped in the Washington Post last summer. In it, he writes,
Palestinians want, on their terms, the same thing Western societies want: self-determination, modernity, access to markets and their own economic power, and freedom for civil society to evolve. Those who warn of “failed states” and “Hamastan” as a breeding ground for terrorism forget where blame for failure belongs — at the feet of the American administration, which has chosen to isolate, rather than deal with, the elected government.
Someone has been paying attention to the political rhetoric out of Washington!
I hope this isnt a thread hijack. Im just trying to point out that we shouldnt, as a matter of civic duty, give two chits. The guy is a player and I think we can choose our own president wthout his “help”, thank you very much.
After all, Al Qaeda endorsed Bush in 2004.
Aziz Poonawalla’s last blog post..The Papacy and Jon Stewart
Aziz, can you point out which parts of this statement you agree with? Or is it the whole thing?
“Palestinians want, on their terms, the same thing Western societies want: self-determination, modernity, access to markets and their own economic power, and freedom for civil society to evolve. Those who warn of “failed states†and “Hamastan†as a breeding ground for terrorism forget where blame for failure belongs — at the feet of the American administration, which has chosen to isolate, rather than deal with, the elected government.”
jay, i dont see why my opinion about that para is relevant. its solely evidence for Mr Yosef’s intentions with his little endorsement.
Aziz Poonawalla’s last blog post..The Papacy and Jon Stewart
Well, otherwise, I don’t get your point.
Uh oh.
Now I see a potential downside to this 15 minute edit thing…..
if you want to understand my point, start reading from the sentence “I am just trying to make the point that…”
Aziz Poonawalla’s last blog post..The Papacy and Jon Stewart
jay, maybe this will also help.
http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/18/74439/0284#4
Aziz Poonawalla’s last blog post..The Papacy and Jon Stewart
From the DD discussion:
By the definition thrown around your post, Aziz, a democracy is any form of government where a single man doesn’t make a decision. The junta in Burma is a democracy; the government of WW2 imperial Japan wasm a democracy. By this definition nearly every government in the world except North Korea is a democracy.
As for Ahmed Yousef, he’s a propagandist. I especially like how he says the Palestinians simply want to live in peace – and then blames the US for their failure not to. America is forcing the Pals to fire missiles from Gaza into Israel. The US is compelling the Pals to strap on bombing belts and attack civilians.
Chomsky would no doubt agree.
One more thing…
If Gaza is a democracy explain what happened in June 2007. Also, which election did Khaled Mashaal win and who did he defeat?
From the DD discussion:
scott, i linked to my comments, not those of others, for whom i am not responsible.
and yes you are exactly correct about Yousef. which is why his endorsement is irrelevant to anything.
Aziz Poonawalla’s last blog post..The Papacy and Jon Stewart
Aziz
The link got the whole thread – so I wasn’t sure what your point was.
Um… No… It says alot when you think about it.
You’re right that AQ endorsed Bush in ‘04. But why did they do so? Because their ideology is apocalyptic, and keeping Bush in office furthered this belief. Bush of course was happy to oblige, by sending thousands of AQ to whatever after-life awaited them after experiencing their own personal “apocalypse” through hellfire missiles and USMC and US Army bullets.
So why is Hamas backing Obama? Hamas does not follow an apocalyptic ideology – so their reasoning must be more pragmatic.
What could their reasoning be? At the very least that they will get a better deal from Obama than they would from McCain. Is this necessarily a bad thing? Yes, because they have not moderated since seizing power and remain dedicated to the destruction of Israel – an American ally.
This is the “murderers scenario” – a zero sum “game” whereby you have a winner and a loser. Hamas wins at Israel’s expense. Contrast this with the “mugger’s scenario” which is not zero-sum; each participant has a chance of surviving through compromise.
Obama believes that an Obama administration would be much more antagonistic to Israel than a McCain one. Given Obama’s anti-semitic “spritual mentor”, his backing by Nadhmi Auchi, the presence of Zbigniew Brzezinski on his foreign policy team, and his refusal to condemn Carter’s meeting with Hamas leaders as virulently as he has attacked Don Imus, and I’d say that Hamas’s position makes sense from their perspective.
The case for an anti-Israeli Obama administration is pretty unconvincing. Obama has hundreds of advisors spanning the gamut of policy positions, and he certainly cant be expected to denounce everything bad or stupid that people say.
At any rate, Obama has been defended as pro-Israel in the pages of the jerusalem post:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1200308099552
and is characterized as a zionist by the usual lefty suspects, so really i think this whole thing about hamas is just a hail mary pass to try and convince american jews to vote GOP again – which reduces them to one dmensional automatons in the same way that dems think appealing to economic issues will peel off lower middle class values voters who “should” be voting D.
Aziz Poonawalla’s last blog post..The Papacy and Jon Stewart
Yep and he’s criticized in the same space. In a piece titled “It’s Barack Obama’s advsiors who concern me,” Lawrence Zell writes that since Obama’s voting record is scant, we have to look at his advisors to judge whether he will be good for Israel or not:
As for his advisors spanning the “gamut of policy positions”, Merrill “Tony” McPeak is his military advisory; Zbigniew Brzezinski is his foreign policy advisor; another foreign policy expert Robert Malley; foreign policy adviser, close personal friend and former employee Samantha Power. Obama is also heavily supported by George Soros, and attended fundraisers thrown by Allan Houston, an anti-semite who holds the Jews responsible for murdering Jesus Christ.
Then there’s Susan Rice, John Kerry’s foreign policy advisor, who advised her candidate to appoint Jimmy Carter and James Baker – both men viewed as antagonistic to Israel’s interest – to mediating peace in the region. Kerry had to back down by blaming his staff – Susan Rice. Scott Lasensky wants to Israel to negotiate with Hamas… The list goes on… As does the article. I’d continue but I’m tired of hardcoding the links.
Since the bar for being an anti-semite is so low, its hard to take the claim that obama imbibes it via osmosis from all these people who are also supposedly anti-semites/anti-israel. usually the definition of anti-israel is nothing more than “believes in land for peace” which puts Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres in the same category. Exactly what is the fear here? Obama is gonna nuke tel aviv? withold foreign aid? wear a kaffyeh? explain to me how our policy would realistically change towards israel. What secret burning desire does the ZBig hold that will become Obama policy by fiat?
Aziz Poonawalla’s last blog post..The Papacy and Jon Stewart
Aziz
My biggest problem with ZB is the fact that he oversaw the worst foreign policy disaster since World War 2: the loss of Iran to Islamic militants and the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Perhaps you were too young to remember the Carter era. I’m not. Even today ZB thinks in Cold War terms about Russia. The man is locked in the past who thinks in “spheres of influence” and zero-sum political strategies with our greatest enemy, Russia. Unfortunately this makes him more widely read by Russians than by us.
But Alan Dershowiz says: “It is a tremendous mistake for Barack Obama to select as a foreign policy adviser the one person in public life who has chosen to support a bigoted book,” – referring to ‘The Israel Lobby,’ by American academics Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer.
An inexperienced candidate like Obama will have to rely upon his advisers; if those advisers are antagonistic with an important ally like Israel, then why shouldn’t those of us who support Israel not be concerned?
After all, to get back to the point, Hamas sees something it likes in Obama. What do they see? And if a terrorist organization sworn to the destruction of Israel likes him, explain exactly why those of us who support Israel should not be concerned?
I meant Vietnam War – not WW2.
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