A Vote for the Death of Israel Reaction

Daniel Larison responds to what he calls a "ginned-up phony controversy".

For those of you who have wisely been ignoring the final days of the campaign, here is the story about the tape: back in 2003 when Khalidi was about to leave Chicago to fill Edward Said’s post at Columbia after Said had passed on, there was a farewell party attended by Obama, and there was a video record of it that was leaked to the L.A. Times that the newspaper first reported on in April. This party and Obama’s attendance at it have been more or less common knowledge to anyone who has spent much time following Obama’s career, and the party and the relationship between Obama and Khalidi have been made out to be meaningful evidence that Obama harbors some pro-Palestinian attitudes because of things he said at this party about Khalidi. Pro-Palestinian activists and advocates for “even-handed” U.S. policy ardently hope this is the case, and hawkish “pro-Israel” people desperately fear that this is true, or at least they are willing to pretend that they think it is true if it helps to defeat Obama, whom they may dislike for various other reasons. Now some are claiming that the tape purportedly has a record of Obama saying things not just about Khalidi, but about Israel and Palestine as well, but as far as I can tell this is just more baseless rumormongering.