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| By Israel Insider staff May 10, 2008 |
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A principal Mideast adviser to US presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama resigned Friday after reports surfaced that he had been in repeated contact with members of Hamas.
Rob Malley met with Hamas officials during "research" for reports he wrote for the International Crisis Group, a non-partisan conflict-resolution think tank. A former National Security Council aide to President Bill Clinton, he said that all visits with Hamas members were coordinated with the State Department, and that the government was always briefed following the meetings.
Yet despite his rationalizations, Malley chose on Friday to resign from the campaign. "To do my job, I have to meet with savory and unsavory people," he said, but said that questions about his Hamas talks distracted him and followers of the Obama campaign. "This was a distraction for me; this was a distraction for them," he said Friday night. "It is absurd, but that is what this campaign is about."
The Obama campaign downplayed the development on Friday, emphasizing that Malley's role was informal and trivial. "Mr. Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign," said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor. "He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future." |
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