Obama’s pastor reprinted Hamas essay

By · March 20, 2008

Barack Obama’s controversial pastor reprinted an article by a Hamas leader in the church’s newsletter.

In an issue dated July 22, 2007, in a section titled “Pastor’s Page,” the church reprinted an article by Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzook in which he justifies Hamas’ withholding of recognition of Israel’s right to exist. The article originally appeared as an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times.

Dov Hikind, a New York state assemblyman, issued a news release condemning the Democratic presidential candidate’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., and calling on Obama to sever his ties with Wright and his church, Trinity United Church in Chicago.

The New York lawmaker, who is in the Israeli town of Sderot for the holiday of Purim, urged Obama to visit the town “to see what support for Hamas terror looks like, and he will see why he must sever his ties to Wright and his church.”

Obama, who says he rejects many of Wright’s views, has defended the Bush administration’s policy of not talking to Hamas and Israel’s military attempts to stop rocket attacks launched by Hamas and Hezbollah.

Hikind has his own ties to a controversial religious figure – before being elected, he was an adviser to the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. A leading advocate for the mass transfer of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs, Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League and Kach, a group that has been classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.