-- JERUSALEM -- Advisers to Barack Obama held a secret meeting in Gaza with a leading member of Hamas during the last few weeks of the U.S. election campaign, according to the senior political adviser to Hamas's "prime minister" in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh.Obama's people say it never happened.
Ahmed Yousef told the al Hayat newspaper in London in an article published today that the meeting, was between himself and a small number of Obama foreign policy advisers. Mr. Yousef is quoted as saying the emissaries asked him not to say anything about the meetings lest it give support to Mr. Obama's rival for president, Senator John McCain.
Speaking from Gaza, today, Ayman abu Leilah, aspokesman for Mr. Yousef, confirmed these statements as true, adding that the most recent meeting took place in early October "one month before the election." He said Mr. Yousef had first met the Obama people some years ago when he was studying in the United States.
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UPDATE: He apparently didn't meet with the ACLU
“We have to hold president-elect Obama's feet to the fire if we're going to turn hope into reality,” Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said Monday.Better just keep hoping, huh?
“I will close Guantanamo,” Mr. Obama said in 2007.
In the weeks before his election, he ducked questions about when he might deliver.
“As quickly as we can do so prudently,” he said when pressed on a timetable.
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