By The American Spectator
Questions Remain about Obama and Hamas
The Obama campaign,which has had problems in the past with its perceived —sometimes inaccurately —support of Palestinian interests over America’s best ally in the Middle East region,Israel,didn’t do itself any favors two weeks ago with pro-Israeli and mainstream Jewish groups.
That’s when Obama’s Jewish liaison,Dan Shapiro,along with several foreign-policy and Middle East transition team members,sat down with about 29 representatives of Jewish organizations. The difference:several high profile Israeli peace organizations were given prominent play at the meetings. Those groups included:Peace Now,the Israel Policy Forum,J Street,and Brit Tzedek.
Not invited to the meeting —under the guise of a “scheduling conflict”—was Malcolm Hoenlein,head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations,a middle of the road Jewish coalition group that has traditionally taken a lead role in setting up coalition meetings with national political figures.