Senator helped fund organization that rejects 'racist' Israel's existence
JERUSALEM, Feb. 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The board of a nonprofit
organization on which Sen. Barack Obama served as a paid director alongside a
confessed domestic terrorist granted funding to a controversial Arab group
that mourns the establishment of Israel as a "catastrophe" and supports
intense immigration reform, including providing drivers licenses and education
to illegal aliens, according to Aaron Klein, Middle East correspondent for
WND.com.
The co-founder of the Arab group in question, Columbia University professor
Rashid Khalidi, also has held a fundraiser for Obama. Khalidi is a harsh
critic of Israel, has made statements supportive of Palestinian terror and
reportedly has worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization while
it was involved in anti-Western terrorism and was labeled by the State
Department as a terror group.
In 2001, the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit that describes itself as a
group helping the disadvantaged, provided a $40,000 grant to the Arab American
Action Network, or AAAN, for which Khalidi's wife, Mona, serves as president.
The Fund provided a second grant to the AAAN for $35,000 in 2002.
Obama was a director of the Woods Fund board from 1999 to Dec. 11, 2002,
according to the Fund's website. According to tax filings, Obama received
compensation of $6,000 per year for his service in 1999 and 2001.
Obama served on the Wood's Fund board alongside William C. Ayers, a member of
the Weathermen terrorist group which sought to overthrow of the U.S.
government and took responsibility for bombing the U.S. Capitol in 1971.
Ayers, who still serves on the Woods Fund board, contributed $200 to Obama's
senatorial campaign fund and has served on panels with Obama at numerous
public speaking engagements. Ayers admitted to involvement in the bombings of
U.S. governmental buildings in the 1970s. He is a professor at the University
of Illinois at Chicago.
The AAAN in 2005 called a billboard opposing a North Carolina-New Mexico joint
initiative to deny driver's licenses to illegal aliens a "bigoted attack on
Arabs and Muslims."
Speakers at AAAN dinners and events routinely have taken an anti-Israel line.
The group co-sponsored a Palestinian art exhibit, titled, "The Subject of
Palestine," that featured works related to what some Palestinians call the
"Nakba" or "catastrophe" of Israel's founding in 1948.
Media Contact: M. Sliwa Public Relations, 973-272-2861 / 212-202-4453,
media@msliwa.com
SOURCE Aaron Klein
M. Sliwa Public Relations, +1-973-272-2861, +1-212-202-4453, media@msliwa.com,
for Aaron Klein
