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Clinton proposed rigging Palestinian elections in 2006: Leaked audio

US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speaks during a Democratic Party rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on October 28, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had proposed rigging the Palestinian parliamentary elections while she was a US senator in 2006, according to newly emerged tapes.

Speaking to media about the January 25, 2006, election for the legislature of the Palestinian National Authority, Clinton lamented that the US did not “determine who was going to win.”

The result of that election was a resounding victory for the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas over the US-favored Fatah political party.

“I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake,” then-New York Senator Clinton told The Jewish Press, a New York-based weekly newspaper, several months after the January election.

“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,” she said.

Eli Chomsky, an editor and a staff writer for the weekly newspaper, shared and played the tape for The New York Observer, which is also a weekly newspaper.

Chomsky had interviewed Clinton at the Jewish Press office located at the Brooklyn borough of New York City. 

Speaking to The Observer, Chomsky recalled being confused by the fact that “anyone could support the idea — offered by a national political leader, no less — that the US should be in the business of fixing foreign elections.”

“I went to my bosses at the time,” Chomsky said. “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 interview took place nine months after Hamas claimed 74 of the 132 parliamentary seats, pushing aside Fatah and securing the right to form a new cabinet.

In Washington, however, where Hamas is on a terror blacklist, officials in the George W. Bush administration repeatedly stated that they would not work with a Palestinian government ruled by Hamas.

The new revelation comes after repeated statements by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that the media and the political establishment have rigged the 2016 election against him and he may not accept the election outcome if Clinton wins.


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