Hamas Claims Secret Relationship with Obama Aides

(IsraelNN.com) Hamas is claiming close and ongoing ties with America's upcoming Obama Administration, according to a report published Tuesday in the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat. The relationship was kept under wraps until after the U.S. elections so as not to harm Obama’s election prospects. The U.S. has classified Hamas a terrorist organization.

The London-based publication interviewed Gaza-based political chief Ahmad Yousuf, advisor to Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas regime in Gaza, which seized power in a bloody coup d’etat in 2007.  Yousuf declared that Hamas has been in regular contact with President-elect Barack Obama’s advisers for months.

"We were in contact with a number of Obama's aides through the internet, and later met with some of them in Gaza," the Hamas official was quoted as saying, "but they advised us not to come out with any statements, as that may have had a negative effect on his election campaign and be used by Republican candidate John McCain."

Senior Obama foreign policy adviser Denis McDonough flatly denied the claim, telling The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday afternoon, "This assertion is just plain false."

Contacts allegedly began during the presidential race and Yousuf expects the relationship to continue. He has also predicted that there will be "a change" in American foreign policy in the Middle East once Obama enters the White House. However, he said, the new president will focus more on domestic issues and pay less attention to the region "and the Palestinian issue" than did his predecessor.

Haniyeh sent Obama a telegram congratulating him on his "historic victory" in the U.S. elections, according to FrontPage Magazine.

Obama Advisor Malley's Role Uncertain
After the U.S. elections, President-elect Obama appointed Robert Malley as a senior foreign policy adviser.  Malley, who served as an “informal adviser” to the Obama campaign, was reportedly forced to sever his ties with the campaign six months ago, when The Times of London reported that he was meeting with Hamas representatives on a regular basis.  During the campaign Obama claimed he opposed contacts with the Hamas.

At the time, campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt stated that "Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past.  He has no formal role in the campaign. He will not play any role in the future."

FrontPage Magazine reported Tuesday that Obama has already dispatched Malley to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar Assad. The report cites an unnamed aide of Malley’s as stating that Malley's job is to explain 'that the Obama administration will take Egyptian and Syrian interests more into account' than did the outgoing Bush administration.

Yeah, no kidding. Let's look at Malley, shall we?

History will record that Barack Obama’s first act of diplomacy as America’s president-elect took place two days after his election victory, when he dispatched his senior foreign-policy adviser, Robert Malley, to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—to outline for them the forthcoming administration’s Mideast policy vis-à-vis those nations. An aide to Malley reports, “The tenor of the messages was that the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests” than has President Bush. The Bush administration, it should be noted, has rightly recognized Syria to be not only a chief supporter of theal Qaeda insurgency in Iraq, but also the headquarters of the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the longtime sponsor of Hamas—the terrorist army whose founding charter is irrevocably committed to the annihilation of Israel. Yet unlike President Bush, Obama and Malley have called for Israel to engage in peace negotiations with Syria.

A Harvard-trained lawyer and Rhodes Scholar, Robert Malley is no newcomer to the Obama team. In 2007, Obama selected him as a foreign policy adviser to his campaign. At the time, Malley was (and still is today) the Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the International Crisis Group(ICG), which receives funding from the Open Society Institute of George Soros (who, incidentally, serves on the ICG Executive Committee).

In his capacity with ICG, Malley directs a number of analysts who focus their attention most heavilyon the Arab-Israeli conflict, the political and military developments in Iraq, and Islamist movements across the Middle East. Prior to joining ICG, Malley served as President Bill Clinton’s Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs (1998-2001), and as National Security Adviser Sandy Berger’s Executive Assistant (1996-1998).

Robert Malley was raised in France. His lineage is noteworthy. His father, Simon Malley (1923-2006), was a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party. A passionate hater of Israel, the elder Malley was a close friend and confidante of the late PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat; an inveterate critic of “Western imperialism”; a supporter of various revolutionary “liberation movements,” particularly the Palestinian cause; a beneficiary of Soviet funding; and a supporter of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. According to American Thinker news editor Ed Lasky, Simon Malley “participated in the wave of anti-imperialist and nationalist ideology that was sweeping the Third World [and] … wrote thousands of words in support of struggle against Western nations.”