In this week’s debate, Hillary Clinton said all of her “baggage” has been “rummaged through” for years. But important features of her close relationship with known terrorist sympathizers and Hamas supporters are still opaque to the public view.

Her relationship with terrorists began in the mid-1980s when she served on the Board of the New World Foundation, which gave funds to the Palestine Liberation Organization, at a time when the PLO was officially recognized by the US government as a terrorist organization.

In 1996, the First Lady initiated an outreach program to bring Muslim leaders to the White House. But, as terrorism expert Steve Emerson noted in the Wall Street Journal “Curiously, nearly all of the leaders with whom Mrs. Clinton elected to meet came from Islamic fundamentalist organizations. A review of the statements, publications, and conferences of the groups Mrs. Clinton embraced shows unambiguously that they have long advocated or justified violence. By meeting with these groups, the first lady lent them legitimacy as ‘mainstream’ and ‘moderate.’”

Among these radical groups was the American Muslim Alliance (AMA) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, both groups that support Hamas, who attended a White House reception hosted by Hillary in February, 1996. Emerson says that its leaders “have sanctioned terrorism, published anti-Semitic statements, and repeatedly hosted conferences that were forums for denunciations of Jews and exhortations to wage jihad.”

The American Muslim Alliance was headed in the 90s by Abdulrahman Alamoudi who met with Clinton and Gore in 1995. Emerson notes that “Mrs. Clinton [allowed] the American Muslim Alliance to draw up the Muslim guest list for the first lady’s…White House reception.”

Alamoudi, Emerson says was “the primary defender of Musa Abu Marzug, the Hamas political bureau chief responsible for creating the group’s death squads.” Marzug took “credit” when Hamas brigades sprayed machine gun fire into a crowded Jerusalem mall. But less than three days after Marzug was arrested by the FBI in July of 1995, Alamoudi said that Marzug “had never been involved in terrorism” and called his arrest “an insult to the Muslim community. Emerson reports that he “elicited contributions fro Marzug’s defense fund” and called him a “political prisoner.”

Then, Hillary ran for Senate on her own and suddenly it was payback time. On June 13, 2000, the American Muslim Alliance’s Massachusetts Chapter held a very successful fundraiser for her candidacy. Tahir Ali, the chairman of the chapter, said “we must support all who have [Muslim] interests at heart.”

Perhaps conscious of how controversial the contribution would be, Hillary or someone on her staff, tried to pull a fast one, recording the donation on federal filing forms as being from the “American Museum Alliance.” But alert observers weren’t fooled and Senate candidate Clinton was forced to acknowledge who the real donor was and, four months after getting the money, she returned it.

But by then, a few weeks before the election, she had abjured the use of soft money in her Senate campaign, so the donation was, in practical terms, useless, since it was well over the limits for hard money contributions.

The Palestinian terrorists know that Hillary hears their point of view. WorldNetDaily.com reported on October 7, 2007 that leading terrorists have publicly called for her election. Aaron Klein, WorldNet Daily’s Jerusalem correspondent, wrote, in his wonderful book Schmoozing with Terrorists, Ala Senakreh, West Bank chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist group said “I hope Hillary is elected in order to have the occasion to carry out all the promises she is giving regarding Iraq.”

Senakreh has high hopes for a Hillary presidency. He told Klein “I hope also that she will maintain her husband’s policies regarding Palestine and even develop that policy.

Abu Hamed, leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades in Gaza, noting that “the Iraqi resistance is succeeding,” said that “Hillary and the Democrats call for withdrawal.” Then he added, helpfully, &ldqu o;Her popularity shows that the resistance is winning and that the occupation is losing. We just hope that she will go until the end and change American policy.” He explained that “President Clinton wanted to give the Palestinians 98 percent of the West Bank territories. I hope Hillary will move a step forward and give the Palestinians all their rights.”

Clearly Barack Obama should not have stayed in Rev Wright’s church and his campaign should not maintain a “friendly” relationship with William Ayers. But what about Hillary’s service on a board that gave money to a terrorist organization? And her hosting of a terror supporting group in the White House? And her acceptance of a $50,000 contribution from that group? And the statements of terrorists that they are hoping for her to win.

These are far more serious connections than have been established for Obama and either Wright or Ayers.