LA Times story: 'Palestinians See a Friend in Barack Obama.'
在1970-1980年代,巴勒斯坦解放组织鼓动武装斗争,到处搞袭击和暗杀。包括在1972年的慕尼黑奥运会上,闯进奥运村绑架并杀害了多名奥运选手,真是空前决后的恐怖行为。
Rashid Khalidi 在那个时期(1976-1982)的巴解官方新闻社的头目,后来在芝加哥大学任教,与奥巴马成为长期的朋友与伙伴。2003年Khalidi 离开芝加哥去纽约,奥巴马在送别他的宴会上大力赞扬 Khalidi:Obama said his many talks with Khalidi and his wife Mona stood as "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases."
In recent months Obama has distanced himself from the man the Times says he once called a friend. "He is not one of my advisers. He's not one of my foreign policy people," Obama said at a campaign event in May. "He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel's policy."
But on the tape, according to the Times, Obama said in his toast that he hoped his relationship with Khalidi would continue even after the professor left Chicago. "It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table ... [but around] this entire world."
A number of Web sites have accused the Times of purposely suppressing the tape of the event -- which former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn reportedly attended.
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/28/la-times-refuses-release-tape-obama-praising-controversial-activist/
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-obamamideast10apr10,0,1780231,full.story