Several Jewish organizations expressed outrage following the publication of opinion pieces authored by a Hamas figure in two of the US's most prestigious newspapers on Wednesday. Both The New York Times and The Washington Post ran op ed pieces by Ahmed Yousef, a senior political adviser to Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, one of two competing Palestinian Authority prime ministers. The columns, which didn't note that Hamas is recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States, sparked anger from many groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, which wrote to the Times the following day. "Ahmed Yousef's preposterous picture of Hamas as a moderate, peace loving organization committed to a cease-fire with Israel has no basis in reality," wrote Glen S. Lewy, ADL national chairman. "The chaos, violence and destruction in Gaza and the looting and dismantling of the security infrastructure and border control facilities that followed shows the real face of Hamas," he wrote.
Morton A. Klein, the Zionist Organization of America's national president, called the newspapers' decision to publish the pieces "appalling," adding that it was akin to printing an article by Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann in 1942. Klein went on to say that publishing columns by representatives of terrorist organizations only served to legitimize their views.
Both op eds sought to justify Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip and called on the United States to "engage with Hamas," urging the Bush administration "not to repeat the mistakes that have become the hallmarks of its actions in the Middle East."