Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Barack Obama

Obama in 1998 attended a speech by Edward Said, the late Columbia University professor and a leading intellectual in the Palestinian movement. According to a news account of the speech, Said called that day for a nonviolent campaign "against settlements, against Israeli apartheid."

The use of such language to describe Israel's policies has drawn vehement objection from Israel's defenders in the United States. A photo on the pro-Palestinian website the Electronic Intifada shows Obama and his wife, Michelle, engaged in conversation at the dinner table with Said, and later listening to Said's keynote address. Obama had taken an English class from Said as an undergraduate at Columbia University.

Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian rights activist in Chicago who helps run Electronic Intifada, said that he met Obama several times at Palestinian and Arab American community events. At one, a 2000 fundraiser at a private home...

In Chicago, one of Obama's friends was Khalidi, a highly visible figure in the Arab American community.

In the 1970s, when Khalidi taught at a university in Beirut, he often spoke to reporters on behalf of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization.

1996 Democratic Convention Diary(August 25, 1996)

After that, I inform Martha that I'm dragging her to the apartment of old friends, ex-Weathermen, Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, hosting a party for Senator Leahy. Perhaps Edward Said will be there I urge her to come by promising that the event will push the edges of the envelope of her centrist politics.

Edward Wadie Saïd MRSL (إدوارد وديع سعيد‎; 1 November 1935 – 25 September 2003) was a Palestinian American literary theorist, cultural critic, political activist, and an outspoken advocate of Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and is a founding figure in postcolonial theory.

Senator Leahy endorses Obama

From left to right, Michelle Obama, then Illinois state senator Barack Obama, Columbia University Professor Edward Said and Mariam Said at a May 1998 Arab community event in Chicago at which Edward Said gave the keynote speech. [Ali Abunimah archives]

If the United States was caught unawares on 9/11, Edward Said's name belongs high on the list of those responsible.

Odinga - - Odinga - - Odinga

Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga has said he is a cousin of US presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

Mr Odinga told the BBC's The World Today that Senator Obama's father was his maternal uncle.

BBC
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However, Kibaki’s government has been better than most—and Odinga has his own corruption issues.( “Loud and Populist, But No Political Outsider” The Guardian 12/29/2007)

Obama’s partisan support for Odinga was considered so transparent, that the Kenyan Government spokesman, Alfred Matua, complained of political posturing to aid Odinga’s election chances: “It is very clear that the senator has been used as a puppet to perpetuate opposition politics,”(“Walking The World Stage” Newsweek 9/11/06) And, “…we earlier thought he was mature in his assessment of Kenyan and African politics,” Mutua told AFP.”We forgive him because it is his first time in the Senate and he is yet to mature into understanding issues of foreign policy,” he said.”(“Obama’s Kenya Honeymoon Ends Abruptly After Graft Rebuke” 8/29/06) Subsequently, Ambassador Ogingo Ogego made a public complaint to the US.(“Kenyan Envoy Kicks Off Diplomatic Row” My Africa 9/27/2006)

Raila Odinga subsequently lost the controversial (probably rigged) presidential election. In what appeared to many—including Human Rights Watch– as a coordinated strategy from the top, (“Violence We Fled was Planned, Say Kenyan Refugees” Reuters 1/26/2008 and “Kenya: Violence Planned Before Poll, Says Report” The Nation 3/18/2008) his Luo supporters (a core of whom call themselves The Taliban”(“Ethnic Gangs Rile Kenyan Slums” Newsweek 1/10/08)) engaged in what US Envoy Jendayi Frazer called “clear ethnic cleansing” (“US Envoy Calls Violence in Kenya ‘Ethnic Cleansing’” USA Today 1/30/2008) of the Kikuyu opposition.

Africa Press International

Odinga Website

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