Arab World Campaign Money Could Help Obama

Via Philippe Ohlund:

Sen. Barack is Obama a Muslim of Kenyan origins who studied in Islamic schools and whose campaign may have been financed by people in the Islamic and African worlds, Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi said during a recent televised national rally.

"There are elections in America now. Along came a black citizen of Kenyan African origins, a Muslim, who had studied in an Islamic school in Indonesia. His name is Obama," said Gadhafi in little-noticed remarks he made at a rally marking the anniversary of the 1986 U.S. air raid on his country.

The remarks, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, MEMRI, were aired on Al Jazeera in June.

"All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man," continued Gadhafi. "They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency.

"We are hoping that this black man will take pride in his African and Islamic identity, and in his faith, and that [he will know] that he has rights in America, and that he will change America from evil to good, and that America will establish relations that will serve it well with other peoples, especially the Arabs," Gadhafi said.

Source: World Net Daily.

See MEMRI's page here.

Folks can question the legitimacy of this information, and World Net Daily doesn't add anything new to the initial MEMRI translation from June.

However, as Jennifer Rubin reported in September, Barack Obama, as a board member of the Woods Fund, received substantial support from the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), a non-profit group "supposedly dedicated to improving the conditions of Arab immigrants in the Chicago area."

One Woods board member was Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi, who helped organize Arab political donations to Barack Obama's election campaigns:

Khalidi, a former spokesman for Yasser Arafat, held a fundraiser for Obama in 2000 during his unsuccessful bid for Congress....

The pattern of funneling money to political allies and their allies is evident throughout Obama’s tenure at the Woods Fund. Tens and tens of thousands of dollars were granted to organizations including the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPPPI), the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Centers for New Horizons, the Chicago Jobs Council, the Chicago Education Fund, the Chicago Institute on Urban Poverty, the Chicago Urban League, The Gamaliel Foundation. Dozens of the board members and officials from these organizations in turn would donate money, in many instances up to the legal limit, for Obama’s Senate and Presidential races between 2004 and 2008.

For example the Woods Fund between 1999 and 2002 granted $60,000 to BPPPI. Board member and executives donated at least $16,950 to Obama’s political campaigns. The Woods Fund granted the Center of Neighborhood Technology $150,000 between 1999 and 2002. Obama received over $24,000 in campaign donations from its officials. And in turn Obama made sure to seek earmarks on their behalf once he reached the U.S. Senate.

A similar pattern of mutual financial help existed with regard to many of these organizations. While there is no evidence of an explicit quid pro quo, what is apparent is that the seeds of long term relationships and a network of financial support were sewn while Obama was a Woods board member.

While Obama's Arab/Palestian connections appear murky, the mainstream press reported on these relationships during the primaries, for example, in the Los Angeles Times' expose, "Allies of Palestinians See a Friend in Barack Obama."

Folks can question the significance and veracity of all of this, but as one more stream of Barack Obama's radical associations, I think the American people have a major interest in evaluating these facts for themselves.