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Barack Hussein Obama and Moussa Abu Marzook
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| By Israel Insider staff March 23, 2008 |
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Sen. Barack Obama says that a pro-Hamas op-ed printed in his church's bulletin was "outrageously wrong." In an issue dated July 22, 2007, in a section titled "Pastor's Page," the Trinity United Church in Chicago reprinted an article by Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzook. The article, which originally appeared as an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, justifies the Palestinian terrorist group's denial of Israel's right to exist.
In slamming the Hamas piece, Obama noted again that he strongly rejects some of his longtime pastor's views. "I have already condemned my former pastor's views on Israel in the strongest possible terms, and I certainly wasn't in church when that outrageously wrong Los Angeles Times piece was re-printed in the bulletin," Obama said in a statement e-mailed to JTA late Thursday.
"Hamas is a terrorist organization, responsible for the deaths of many innocents, and dedicated to Israel's destruction, as evidenced by their bombarding of Sderot in recent months. I support requiring Hamas to meet the international community's conditions of recognizing Israel, renouncing violence, and abiding by past agreements before they are treated as a legitimate actor."
Dov Hikind, a New York state assemblyman, issued a news release condemning Wright and calling on Obama to sever his pastor and his church. The New York lawmaker, who was in Sderot for Purim, urged Obama to visit the town "to see what support for Hamas terror looks like, and he will see why he must sever his ties to Wright and his church."
In addition to his statement on the Hamas article, Obama issued a separate statement timed for Purim - a holiday rarely commented on by candidates or congressmen. It seems to reflect his efforts to go out of his way to reach out to Jews after his recent difficulties explaining the anti-Israel remarks of his foreign pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, including the comment that Israel was a "dirty word."
Perhaps hoping to blunt the effect of the man he has described as "uncle," Obama's statement spoke of "the story of Queen Esther and her uncle Mordechai saving the Jews of ancient Persia from destruction."
"Even as the parties are held, the songs are sung, and the noisemakers are rattled, the history of a people that has had to fight for its survival, remains at the heart of the Purim story," the statement said. "In our day, the celebration is mingled with a determination to ensure that Israel remains safe and strong, that we fight anti-Semitism wherever it occurs, and that the American Jewish community continues to play such an active and vital role in the life of our nation."
And just to show its own fighting spirit, the Obama campaign circulated a photograph of former president Bill Clinton shaking hands with Wright at a September 1998 event for religious clerics, which was held the same day the Starr Report on Monica Lewinsky was made public. No comment on whether Monica was the modern day equivalent of Queen Esther to Clinton's King Ahasuerus. Nor was it implied that Hillary was equivalent to Vashti.
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