JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Wright reprinted Hamas op-ed

By Ami Eden · March 20, 2008

The latest Jeremiah Wright Jr. controversy: He used his regular space in the church newsletter to reprint an essay by Mousa Abu Marzooka, the deputy of the political bureau of Hamas, that first appeared as an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times.

In a short intro to the reprinted piece, Wright says, "Islam has as many manifestations as Christianity and Judaism, but most Americans are only fed a media diet on Islam as it relates to the 'war on terror' and the Palestinian muslim problem in the 'state' of Israel."

BizzyBlog has posted the newsletter.

Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily has his own piece on the issue, with the screaming – and highly misleading – headline: "Obama church published Hamas terror manifesto."

To be sure, the piece is highly critical of Israel and rejects the legitimacy of the Jewish state. But it contains only one line that could be seen as justifying strikes against Israeli targets, and even there it does not speak directly of terrorism: "Hamas has never supported attacks on Westerners, as even our harshest critics will concede; our struggle has always been focused on the occupier and our legal resistance to it — a right of occupied people that is explicitly supported by the Fourth Geneva Convention."

There is plenty here to upset pro-Israel voters without distorting the actual facts.

As for Obama himself, the candidate has defended the Bush administration's policy of refusing to speak with Hamas and Israel's military efforts to stop rocket attacks.