Over at NRO's Media Blog, Tom Gross has the completely unsurprising story of Ahmed Yousef, a senior Hamas official and occasional op-ed contributor for the Washington Post and New York Times. Yousef was able to get both papers to run pieces "defending [Hamas's] policies in Gaza" (this according to a Reuters report under the headline "Hamas scores publicity coup in U.S.") on the same day last summer, shortly after the group seized control of the Gaza strip from the Palestinian Authority.
Yesterday, Gross reported on this statement, which came just ahead of the Annapolis summit:
Israeli officials have warned that Hamas may try to disrupt the conference with more intense rocket fire. Gaza militants, including Hamas members, have fired hundreds of crude, homemade rockets at Israeli border communities in recent years, killing 12 people and disrupting life along the border.
In a statement sent to reporters, [Ahmed] Yousef said that the rockets currently being fired have limited effect because they don't carry lethal enough warheads.
"They can be developed in a short period to create sufficient terror and fear and make the Israelis live in pain no less than what our people live through because of the repeated incursions into our villages and cities in the West Bank and Gaza," wrote Yousef, an adviser to deposed Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh.
The editors at the Times and the Post described Yousef as a "political adviser" last summer. A more appropriate and transparent byline might read, "Ahmed Yousef is a terrorist living in Gaza."
