Audio of Sen. Clinton in 2006 Wishing for Rigged Palestine Election

And making other “questionable moral equivalencies.”

10.28.2016

In September of 2006, Hillary Clinton was campaigning for her re-election bid as a U.S. senator. At a stop in Brooklyn, she met with members of the Jewish Press, including Eli Chomsky who had brought along his tape recorder. What he captured a decade ago was only heard by those in that room. But he recently played it for theObserver because the audio suddenly had new relevance in light of Clinton’s insistence that elections aren’t rigged like her opponent, Donald Trump, alleges.

From the Observer:

Speaking to the Jewish Press about the January 25, 2006, election for the second Palestinian Legislative Council (the legislature of the Palestinian National Authority), Clinton weighed in about the result, which was a resounding victory for Hamas (74 seats) over the U.S.-preferred Fatah (45 seats).

“I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake,” said Sen. Clinton. “And if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win.”

Chomsky recalls being taken aback that “anyone could support the idea—offered by a national political leader, no less—that the U.S. should be in the business of fixing foreign elections.”

There was something else captured, too; one of “questionable moral equivalency,” as the report states:

Regarding capturing combatants in war—the June capture of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas militants who came across the Gaza border via an underground tunnel was very much front of mind—Clinton can be heard on the tape saying, “And then, when, you know, Hamas, you know, sent the terrorists, you know, through the tunnel into Israel that killed and captured, you know, kidnapped the young Israeli soldier, you know, there’s a sense of like, one-upsmanship, and in these cultures of, you know, well, if they captured a soldier, we’ve got to capture a soldier.”

Equating Hamas, which to this day remains on the State Department’s official list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, with the armed forces of a close American ally was not what many expected to hear in the Jewish Press editorial offices, which were then at Third Avenue and Third Street in Brooklyn. (The paper’s office has since moved to the Boro Park section of Brooklyn.) The use of the phrase “these cultures” is also a bit of a head-scratcher.

Chomsky also asked Clinton on the tape about speaking to foreign leaders we are at odds with. Her answer doesn’t sound anything like what she would say today especially with her comments on Vladimir Putin and Russia:

“You know, I’m pretty much of the mind that I don’t see what it hurts to talk to people. As long as you’re not stupid and giving things away. I mean, we talked to the Soviet Union for 40 years. They invaded Hungary, they invaded Czechoslovakia, they persecuted the Jews, they invaded Afghanistan, they destabilized governments, they put missiles 90 miles from our shores, we never stopped talking to them.”

Another note of interest in the report is how Clinton used the phrases “Islamic terrorism” and “Islamo-fascism” when describing these “global threat[s].” She was either still outraged at only five years after 9/11 or politically aware that her audience was the Jewish Press.

The conclusion to this story is also very troubling and proof that in politics and the press, you never bite the hand that feeds you:

In an interview before the Observer heard the tape, Chomsky told the Observer that Clinton made some “odd and controversial comments” on the tape. The irony of a decade-old recording emerging to feature a candidate making comments that are suddenly relevant to voters today was not lost on Chomsky, who wrote the original story at the time. Oddly enough, that story, headlined “Hillary Clinton on Israel, Iraq and Terror,” is no longer available on jewishpress.com and even a short summary published on the Free Republic offers a broken link that can no longer surface the story.

“I went to my bosses at the time,” Chomsky told the Observer. “The Jewish Press had this mindset that they would not want to say anything offensive about anybody—even a direct quote from anyone—in a position of influence because they might need them down the road. My bosses didn’t think it was newsworthy at the time. I was convinced that it was and I held onto it all these years.”

The Freedom Center is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Therefore we do not endorse political candidates either in primary or general elections. However, as defenders of America’s social contract, we insist that the rules laid down by both parties at the outset of campaigns be respected, and that the results be decided by free elections. We will oppose any attempt to rig the system and deny voters of either party their constitutional right to elect candidates of their choice.