On Thanksgiving weekend, President Biden made headlines when he exited a bookstore in Nantucket, Massachusetts carrying Rashid Khalidi's latest anti-Israel screed, The Hundred Years War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism & Resistance, 1917-2017.
Clifford May, President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, quipped, “Why didn’t Obama just give him one of his dog-eared copies?”
It would not surprise me if it was Obama who recommended that his former VP buy the book over the Thanksgiving holiday. If you're old enough to remember the 2008 presidential election, you might remember the L.A. Times stashed away a videotape of Obama praising Khalidi during a tribute dinner in 2003 as Khalidi was departing the University of Chicago for Columbia University. Before his life in academia and becoming a colleague of Obama at the University of Chicago, Khalidi was in the employ of the PLO in Beirut when it was designated as a terrorist organization. While the tape remains under lock and key to this very day, Obama reportedly praised Khalidi for acts of "resistance" against Israel. In this case, resistance=terrorism. I would not be surprised if Obama said far worse.
While the Right is predictably angry with Biden over his purchase, if Obama recommended the book to Biden it would be because he views Biden as too pro-Israel. For Khalidi's part, he says Biden bought the book four years too late. Under the circumstances, perhaps it would be best if Khalidi's book were to gather dust on Biden's shelf.
No comments:
Post a Comment