Posted on 08/21/2008 5:14:05 AM PDT by Kaslin
GOP presidential candidate John McCain’s foreign policy adviser sharply rebuked a key Middle East adviser of their rival’s campaign for engaging in “covert” diplomatic relations with Syria on Wednesday.
The harsh attack was made in reaction to a story published by the New York Sun in which Barack Obama’s Middle East adviser Daniel Kurtzer admitted discussing presidential politics with high-level Syrian officials at a conference underwritten Syrian business interests and a Canadian oil company.
Kurtzer, a former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Egypt, said he told Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, “to move ahead in the Israel-Syria negotiations as much as possible so that whoever is the next president would not start from too far down the track" but insisted the trip was not connected to his campaign work. "I did not say anything about Obama or McCain. I said whoever is the next president is not going to want to inherit a process that isn't going anywhere," Kurtzer told the Sun.
The previously undisclosed meeting took place at lawyer’s conference organized by the British Syrian Society in Damascus in early July. Kurtzer was invited because he is on the board member of the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative. Al-Moallem’s father-in-law is a co-founder of the British Syrian Society and the event was paid for by Syrian corporations and the Canadian oil company, Petro-Canada.
After the conference concluded, Kurtzer traveled with the Obama campaign while it was swinging through Israel.
The McCain camp said these actions amounted to “covert” diplomacy operations by the Obama campaign. “There’s no disclosure with this,” McCain Senior Foreign Policy Adviser Randy Scheunemann said on a conference call Wednesday afternoon.
“These aren’t exactly impartial entities to organize this conference,” Scheunemann said. “Let’s remember the nature of the country this conference was in. Syria has not cooperated with the International Atomic Energy agency in providing flight access, they are sponsors of some of the worst terrorist organizations in the world, they stand credibly charged for being behind the assassination of a number of Lebanese officials, including former Prime Minister Hariri.”
Former New York City Mayor and GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani was also on the call. He likened Kurtzer’s meeting to Obama’s promise to meet with hostile, foreign leaders without “precondition,” a position Obama’s previous Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton criticized Obama for holding.
Giuliani said the Sun's report was “another indication of the inexperience Senator Obama has in conducting foreign policy and maybe an indication of his inability to do so in a way that would be responsible which is the point that Hillary Clinton made when Senator Obama said that he would negotiate with some of these people without precondition.”
“Maybe this is a playing out of his negotiating with dictators without precondition,” Giuliani said.
In the Sun article, Kurtzer is quoted saying he hoped he wasn’t being “used” by the Syrians. “None of us thought we were being used,” Kurtzer said on behalf of those attending the conference. “But we will see over time.”
Who wants to bet that the Syrians are cheering for Obama?
There is no doubt that they do, along with Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and every other terrorist organization
Ironically a Jew goes to Syria to encourage the Syrians to be more aggressive on getting back the Golan, while Syria signs new military alliance with Russia.
I suppose if it was 1939 Kurtzer would be traveling to Germany to urge Hitler to take as much territory as he could before the next US Presidential election?
How safe does Kurtzer think he would be in Syria if he wasn't a “US diplomatic spokesman”? How any Israelis and Americans and others have been killed by Syria and its terrorist surrogates simply for being Jews?
Why would any Jew be serving as an Obama advisor in the first place?
I just don't get it.
The hubris factor is off the scale with Obama & Co.
His hubris is exactly what has gotten him this far. Well, that and the covert support of some far-left moneybags who see this self-obsessed, vain, power-mad twit as a good vehicle for them.
In Greek literature, hubris was usually punished by a terrible catastrophe that completely humbled the person. I don’t care about Obama’s reality check, but I simply hope that the terrible catastrophe doesn’t happen to us instead (which it surely will if he’s elected).
Within 4 years we'll all "take it to the matresses".
When is the DoJ going to start prosecuting the @$$holes who do this treasonous stuff? Democrats wonder why we fear and hate an over bearing government and continually adding more laws to the books. It’s because the government doesn’t enforce the laws already on the books (immigration) or doesn’t enforce them equally (Hillary Clinton’s “cattle futures” deal, the above mentioned “diplomacy”, Jesse Jackson engaging in international diplomacy as a private citizen, yada, yada, yada).
Obama's very Campaign Manager is a Jew, David Axelrod! I cannot imagine how these idiots can overlook the close ties Obama and his wife had with Palestinian extremists throughout the 1990s. I know I will heckle Axelrod and shout "traitor" to him if I ever see him in NYC.
[In the Sun article, Kurtzer is quoted saying he hoped he wasn’t being “used” by the Syrians. “None of us thought we were being used,” Kurtzer said on behalf of those attending the conference. “But we will see over time.”]
We STILL haven’t seen the damn laptop that the Columbians confiscated from captured troops in Venezuela which mentioned a meeting with an “Obama adviser” who promised favorable policy towards the Chavez regime. Obama’s staff is filled with traitors.
Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, has been identified by Israeli leaders, including prime ministers, as biased against Israel and is notorious for urging extreme concessions from the Jewish state. He was appointed as a primary Obama adviser on the Middle East earlier this year.Strange, to say the least.His most recent top Middle East adviser is Daniel Kurtzer, whose own history and plans might generate some concern. He has been criticized for promoting the goals of the Palestinians at the expense of Israel’s security; he previously worked to enhance the status of Yasser Arafat; he has called for more push against Israel so as to provide a “balanced” approach; and — like a distressingly large number of Obama’s advisers — looks askance at “domestic interest groups” influencing foreign policy.
This Kurtzer guy needs to become the next scandal, and the next guy fired from the Obama campaign. Unbelievable.
Thanks for the ping Arthur!
I thought if Barry Obama was President, he could just fly on over to Syria and get whatever he wants once he slathers ol Assad with that magical "O" Juice.
Useful idiots. Or worse. Definitely the worse.
Knock! Knock!
Who’s there?
Candy gram from Mossad, Mr. Kurtzer!
“Why would any Jew be serving as an Obama advisor in the first place?”
Kurtzer, Axelrod, et al. are leftists first and foremost. Their family’s historical Jewish roote to them are merely ethnic, not religious. The left’s religion is socialism.
In this election, American Jews will have to decide between their ethnic and religious identities. If they come down on the side of being religious Jews, then I can’t begin to understand how they would support Obama.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.