{"id":454,"date":"2008-05-13T09:27:08","date_gmt":"2008-05-13T14:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/2parse.com\/?p=454"},"modified":"2008-05-12T23:03:12","modified_gmt":"2008-05-13T04:03:12","slug":"obama-explains-hamass-endorsement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/?p=454","title":{"rendered":"Obama explains Hamas’s “endorsement”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some of my readers will be interested in his exchange, this interview of Barack Obama by Jeffrey Goldberg<\/a>:<\/p>\n

BO<\/strong>: My position on Hamas is indistinguishable from the position of Hillary Clinton or John McCain. I said they are a terrorist organization and I\u2019ve repeatedly condemned them. I\u2019ve repeatedly said, and I mean what I say: since they are a terrorist organization, we should not be dealing with them until they recognize Israel, renounce terrorism, and abide by previous agreements.<\/p>\n

JG<\/strong>: Were you flummoxed by it?<\/p>\n

BO<\/strong>: I wasn\u2019t flummoxed. I think what is going on there is the same reason why there are some suspicions of me in the Jewish community. Look, we don\u2019t do nuance well in politics and especially don\u2019t do it well on Middle East policy. We look at things as black and white, and not gray. It\u2019s conceivable that there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, \u201cThis is a guy who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein, and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so he\u2019s not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush,\u201d and that\u2019s something they\u2019re hopeful about. I think that\u2019s a perfectly legitimate perception as long as they\u2019re not confused about my unyielding support for Israel\u2019s security.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When I visited Ramallah, among a group of Palestinian students, one of the things that I said to those students was: \u201cLook, I am sympathetic to you and the need for you guys to have a country that can function, but understand this: if you\u2019re waiting for America to distance itself from Israel, you are delusional. Because my commitment, our commitment, to Israel\u2019s security is non-negotiable.\u201d I\u2019ve said this in front of audiences where, if there were any doubts about my position, that\u2019d be a place where you\u2019d hear it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of my readers will be interested in his exchange, this interview of Barack Obama by Jeffrey Goldberg: BO: My position on Hamas is indistinguishable from the position of Hillary Clinton or John McCain. I said they are a terrorist organization and I\u2019ve repeatedly condemned them. I\u2019ve repeatedly said, and I mean what I say: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[22,3,82,6,4,9],"tags":[260,84,261,259,226],"class_list":["post-454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election-2008","category-foreign-policy","category-israel","category-obama","category-politics","category-the-war-on-terrorism","tag-ahmed-yousef","tag-hamas","tag-hamas-endorsement","tag-jeffrey-goldberg","tag-the-atlantic"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qcx-7k","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}