ISIS Czar a Terrorist Sympathizer Once Fired by Obama for Hamas Ties

A radical foreign policy adviser fired by President Obama years ago for meeting with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas is back as the administration’s new czar in charge of countering the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS).

The White House downplayed the new appointment by burying it deep in a press briefing delivered at a Paris hotel during the recent climate summit. “The President recently elevated Rob Malley, the NSC [National Security Council] Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, to serve now as the Senior Advisor to the President for the Counter-ISIL Campaign in Iraq and Syria,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said during the briefing at the Marriott Rive Gauche Hotel and Conference Center. Before moving onto the next topic Earnest said the president has directed Malley to “support our reinvigorated diplomatic track toward a political transition in Syria…”

Malley has a well-documented history of sympathizing with extremists, which makes this appointment rather outrageous. Judicial Watch wrote about Malley last year when Obama made him the senior director at the NSC even though the president had dumped him as a foreign policy adviser for meeting with and having regular contact with Hamas, long classified a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. Malley’s family had close ties to Yasser Arafat, founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Fatah movement, and Malley was an adviser in Bill Clinton’s White House. He consistently exonerates Palestinians and condemns Israel.

Over the years he has published a number of newspaper opinion pieces urging the United States to reach out and negotiate with terrorist enemies like Hamas, Hezbollah and Muqtada al-Sadr. A website that documents the networks and agendas of the political left offers details about Malley’s scary past and provides links to the egregious articles he’s published, including several co-written with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat. In 2007 Malley published an op-ed piece in a mainstream newspaper expressing strong support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a murderous tyrant who has been credited with helping ISIS rise.

Malley grew up in France and his Egyptian-born father was a key figure in Egypt’s communist party and a close friend of Arafat’s. His parents were fervently anti-Israel and huge supporters of several leftist revolutionary liberation movements, especially the Palestinian cause. Malley published a piece in a mainstream newspaper declaring that Israel was responsible for the failure of Bill Clinton’s peace talks with the Palestinians. Malley attended the 2000 event, which was held at Camp David because it was the site of the landmark 1978 Israeli-Egyptian peace accords.

Shortly after Obama got elected president Israel’s largest news site revealed that the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat reported that Hamas engaged in talks with Obama for months through his “fired” adviser. The article quotes Ahmad Yousuf, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s political advisor, saying this: “We were in contact with a number of Obama’s aides through the Internet, and later met with some of them in Gaza, but they advised us not to come out with any statements, as they may have a negative effect on his election campaign and be used by Republican candidate John McCain (to attack Obama).”

How can Americans possibly confide in Malley to help dismantle what is arguably the world’s deadliest and most brazen terrorist group? A Florida-based Jewish weekly helps answer this, albeit with another question: “With a history of dissing Israel, snuggling up to Hamas, shielding Assad, and promoting the containment of a nuclear-armed Iran, is it any surprise that Malley is Obama’s choice to spearhead the U.S. response to ISIS?”