Will Obama make Israel "an offer it can't refuse?"

Israel, Jews, and Judaism: Will Obama make Israel “an offer it can’t refuse?

There is a report making the rounds that unnamed “Israeli sources” claim that Barack Obama will shortly “demand a timetable for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank,” presumably in return for the US dealing with Iran. A 2014 deadline to establish a Palestinian state is mentioned.

Things like this surface all the time, and mostly they are simply nonsense. It is irresponsible for a journalist, or even a blogger, to publish what is essentially a rumor based on a single report which does not even include a source.

And yet…

There are certainly people in the White House who would think this is a good idea. Everyone knows, they would say, that only details prevent a two-state solution, and the main obstacle to moving forward is right-wing influence on the Israeli PM. Here’s an opportunity, they are saying, let’s take it.

The simple reason that there can be no two-state solution is that it entails the acceptance by the Palestinians of the continued existence of the Jewish state west of the Green Line, and that contradicts the essence of the Palestinian national project. Indeed, one could — I would — go so far as to say that Arabs who would accept a peaceful state alongside Israel as a permanent goal could not properly be called ‘Palestinians’, since the very definition of a ‘Palestinian people’ negates Zionism (but perhaps I digress).

Dennis Ross, who knows as much about ‘peace processing’ as anyone, recently put forward a 14-point plan to bring about a two-state solution. It illustrates two things: one, that Ross possesses a paradoxical combination of intelligence, experience and the inability to see his nose in front of his face; and two, that the concessions it would require from the Palestinians are, as I said above, unthinkable.

Regardless, while a ‘solution’ — that is, an agreement that ends the conflict — is impossible, a coerced Israeli withdrawal in the context of an agreement that pretends to end the conflict is. And that is the danger.

Whether those who would like to force a withdrawal cynically understand that it would be disastrous for Israel’s security and don’t care (or welcome such a disaster), or whether they actually believe it would be a step toward peace is not important. What is important is that they might be able to sell the idea to a public — particularly liberal Jews — that to a great extent continues to believe in the two-state idea. And if they don’t object strongly enough, how could it be stopped?

The confirmation of Chuck Hagel, and particularly the collapse of Sen. Charles Schumer should be instructive. When push comes to shove, today’s liberals — even “strong supporters of Israel” like Schumer are Obama supporters first.

There is another aspect of the situation. That is that the combination of a blow against Iran with a blow against Israel would be a win-win for Sunni Muslim interests in the Middle East: the Saudis, the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey would all like to see Iran defanged and Israel weakened vis-a-vis the Palestinians. Interestingly, Islamist Turkey, the Brotherhood and the Saudis seem to be the people that President Obama finds the most congenial in the region.

Everything seems to be lining up to their advantage. Israel withdraws, the US bombs Iran, Hizballah responds by attacking Israel. Sunni forces, in particular those supported by Turkey, take advantage of the chaos (and the preoccupation of Hizballah) to finish off Assad and take control of Syria. Although the US will support the Palestinian Authority for a time, Hamas — don’t forget, it is the Palestinian branch of the Brotherhood — will soon get control of Judea and Samaria one way or another.

There are other unpleasant possibilities — US-led UN or NATO troops in Judea/Samaria to ‘protect’ the peace agreement, which will end up protecting Palestinian terrorists against Israel, even the possibility of the IDF and Americans shooting at each other. Sound impossible? Chuck Hagel thought it was a good idea, as did Samantha Power, Obama’s “Senior Director of Multilateral Affairs on the staff of the National Security Council.

So, yes, the rumor about a planned offer that Israel can’t refuse is only a rumor. But it could be a true rumor. We’ll find out very shortly.

http://fresnozionism.org/2013/03/will-obama-make-israel-an-offer-it-cant-refuse/

Report: #Hagel Said #Israel Headed Toward #Apartheid, #Netanyahu a ‘Radical’

(Report: Hagel Said Israel Headed Toward Apartheid, Netanyahu a ‘Radical’ | Washington Free Beacon)

BY: Alana Goodman
February 19, 2013 12:51 pm
Secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel said Israel is on its way to becoming an apartheid state during an April 9, 2010, appearance at Rutgers University, according to a contemporaneous account by an attendee.
Hagel also accused Israel of violating U.N. resolutions, called for U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hamas to be included in any peace negotiations, and described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “radical,” according to the source.
Kenneth Wagner, who attended the 2010 speech while a Rutgers University law student, provided the Washington Free Beacon with an email he sent during the event to a contact at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The email is time-stamped April 9, 2010, at 11:37 AM.
“I am sitting in a lecture by Chuck Hagel at Rutgers,” Wagner wrote in the email. “He basically said that Israel has violated every UN resolution since 1967, that Israel has violated its agreements with the quartet, that it was risking becoming an apartheid state if it didn’t allow the Palestinians to form a state. He said that the settlements were getting close to the point where a contiguous Palestinian state would be impossible.”
“He said that he [thought] that Netanyahu was a radical and that even [former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi] Livni, who was hard nosed thought he was too radical and so wouldn’t join in a coalition [government] with him. … He said that Hamas has to be brought in to any peace negotiation,” Wagner wrote.
AIPAC had no comment.
Wagner said the remarks were made during the Q amp;A session. The speech took place at the Rutgers School of Law in Newark.
Wagner, a pro-Israel activist, reiterated the account in an interview with the Free Beacon and called Hagel’s comments “pretty shocking.”
“I was very surprised at his attitude because I had been listening to politicians speak about the situation in the Middle East and the U.S. Israel relationship for about two decades,” Wagner told the Free Beacon. “And it was probably the most negative thing I’d ever heard anybody in elected office say.”
The news of the comments given during the 2010 speech comes at a time when the embattled secretary of defense nominee has been forced to respond to a report that he called the State Department an adjunct of the Israeli foreign ministry during the Q amp;A portion of a 2007 speech at Rutgers.
The Free Beacon reported Thursday on a contemporaneous account of another speech then-Senator Hagel gave at Rutgers in 2007. The report, written by Hagel supporter and political consultant George Ajjan, claimed Hagel had described the U.S. Department of State as an extension of the Israeli government.
Sens. Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte on Friday sent a letter to Hagel requesting an explanation of the alleged comments. The Anti-Defamation League also called on Hagel to explain, and the American Jewish Committee said, “Further Senate deliberation is called for before any final vote is taken.”
Hagel has disavowed the remarks and says he does not recall making them.
“I do not recall making any such statement, or ever making any similar statement,” he wrote in a reply letter to Graham and Ayotte on February 16. “I completely disavow the content of the alleged statement attributed to me.”
According to one of the 2007 event’s organizers, Hooshang Amirahmadi, who is currently running for president of Iran, Ajjan’s account of the 2007 speech is “complete nonsense.”
Amirahmadi told the Free Beacon that some of his “very good Jewish colleagues who are very pro-Israel” did not appear offended at any point during the speech.
The Daily Caller reported on Monday that Amirahmadi accepted funding grants from the Alavi Foundation, which federal law enforcement officials have called a front group for the Iranian regime.
Amirahmadi is also the head of the American Iranian Council, which awarded Hagel an expensive clock in 2002.
Another attendee at the 2007 speech, Rutgers Professor Charles Häberl said he is “certain” Hagel did not say the State Department was an adjunct of the Israeli government, BuzzFeed reported today.
When the Free Beacon contacted Häberl about the 2007 speech last Thursday, he said he was not the best person to talk to about the event.
“Have you been in touch with Hooshang Amirahmadi?” Häberl wrote in an email. “He’s the one who organized the event, and he would be the best situated to talk about it. At the time, I was just a lecturer.”
Meanwhile, Ajjan stood by his account and said he is the only person who has provided a written report from the time.
“If somebody comes out with a transcript and those words aren’t uttered, I’d be the first one to say, ‘My apologies. I wrote something down that was wrong—I misheard it, or I misreported it,’ if that’s the case,” Ajjan told the Washington Free Beacon.
“I’m a conscientious person,” Ajjan said. “When I was blogging at that time, I did my best to record things accurately … there’s no way that I would pick a phrase like ‘adjunct of the Israeli foreign ministry.’ That’s a pretty odd combination of words to use. I wouldn’t have just pulled those out of thin air.”
When asked about Häberl disputing his account, Ajjan said he wants to make it clear he is not trying to undermine Hagel’s confirmation or the Rutgers event. He said he is still a supporter of Hagel.
“I suppose [Häberl] thinks that I’m somehow trying to disparage Chuck Hagel or cast a dark shadow over his confirmation hearings. That’s not the case at all. And I certainly don’t wish to besmirch the people who organized the event,” said Ajjan. “I very much enjoyed the event, I appreciate the people who organized it.”
The Free Beacon is working to obtain transcript and video of Hagel’s comments during the question and answer sessions at Rutgers in both 2007 and 2010, and is continuing to speak to others who attended both events.
A representative for Hagel did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

via freebeacon.com

Time for some more research into what really happened here

#Hagel was brought to #Rutgers by #Khameni supporter

Last week, (Carl) reported on a 2007 Chuck Hagel speech at Rutgers University in whose question and answer session Hagel stated that the US State Department is controlled by Israel. It turns out that there's another interesting story about that speech: Hagel was brought to Rutgers by supporters of Ayatollah Ali Khameni's Iranian dictatorship.

A pro-Hezbollah, pro-Hamas candidate for the Iranian presidency, a man linked to Iranian-controlled front groups, brought former Republican Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel to speak at Rutgers University in 2007, according to another professor on campus.

Hooshang Amirahmadi, who led Rutgers’ Center for Middle Eastern Studies when Hagel came to campus, is the founder and president of the American-Iranian Council. He arranged for Hagel’s speech on March 2, 2007, the faculty source told The Daily Caller.

Iran’s Guardian Council cleared Amirahmadi to run for the presidency in 2013. Approval of the regime is required before candidates’ names can appear on the ballot. To be approved, candidates must be Shia, male, and committed to the Islamic revolution.
...
A press release in 2007 noted that the “Rutgers Center for Middle Eastern Studies” — Amirahmadi’s campus group – ”is hosting the senator’s visit to the university.”

Amirahmadi’s CV discloses that he has received financial support from the Alavi Foundation, a wealthy organization that the U.S. government has called “a front for the government of Iran.”

And IRS records provided to TheDC by FoundationSearch.com show that between 2003 and 2008, Rutgers University received $688,000 from the same foundation.

The New York Post reported in 2009 that the Alavi Foundation contributed $100,000 towards Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University.

“We found evidence that the government of Iran really controlled everything about the foundation,” Adam Kaufmann, investigations chief at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, told the Post in 2009.

Read the whole thing. Hagel is like a gift that keeps on giving with one thing after another being uncovered. And yet... not one Democrat has said he (or she) would vote against him. What will it take to wake these people up as to who Hagel is? What is sufficient to be termed a smoking gun?

Schumer’s Silence

As a New Yorker I sure hope Schumer will at least bring our state some pork in return... It ain't kosher, but I'd at least like to know I got dinner before I was f***ed in the ass

(NYSUN) It’s too soon to say whether Senator Hagel will ultimately be confirmed when the Senate gets back from its vacation. It’s not too soon to suggest that the big loser in this affair looks increasingly likely to be Senator Schumer. He has long cast himself as a guardian on the Jewish front in our vast array of national interests. This was pointed out in a column by John Podhoretz that was issued Friday in the New York Post. It casts in sharp relief the fact that the senator crumpled in the case of Mr. Hagel.
Crumpling is a pattern with Mr. Schumer. We remember watching him in the mid-1990s, when he was in the House and the issue of Jerusalem came to a head. There came a moment when the Congress was going to mark the point by insisting that the American embassy in Israel, situated at Tel Aviv, be moved to Israel’s capital city. It was a favorite issue of Senator Moynihan, who once visited the offices of the Jewish Forward newspaper voicing indignation over a State Department telephone directory that had a listing for Jerusalem as not being in Israel.
The Democrats were being put on the spot by the Republicans, who had swept to power in both houses of Congress and were, at the prodding of Senator Dole, agitating to make an issue of Jerusalem. Mr. Schumer was among those boasting that the Democrats and the Clinton administration were finally going to fix the situation. At the 11th hour, however, the Democrats watered down the Jerusalem Embassy Act, proposing an escape hatch in the form of a waiver by which the president could evade the requirement to move the embassy.
It was, as we recall it, Dianne Feinstein who first advanced this dodge, which was promptly used by President Clinton. Senator Schumer stood silent. It wasn’t a party problem. President George W. Bush and President Obama also used the waiver, and Mr. Schumer stood silent then, too. The result is that although the act of 1995 set a goal of moving the embassy by 1999, we are coming up on a generation since the law was passed and the embassy hasn’t been moved. What reason is there to think that Mr. Schumer might have gone to the mat this time?
Mr. Schumer started cheering on the Republican opposition when Mr. Hagel was first advanced as a potential defense nominee. The minute we heard of Mr. Schumer’s bravado, we made a bet that he would reverse himself. It’s not a bet on which we got rich, and we’d have rather lost it. The fact, in any event, is that Mr. Schumer has been put to shame on his own boast by such stronger senators as Lindsey Graham and James Inhofe. New York’s senior senator could regain his reputation in a fell swoop were he to stand up on what he knows in his heart to be a tragic error by Mr. Obama. It’s unlikely, though we’d be happy to be proven wrong.

Smelling Chuck Hagel

Smelling Chuck Hagel « FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

Image courtesy DavidDuke.com
My grandparents emigrated from Russia to the US before the revolution. They were the type that divided things, and people, into Good For The Jews or Bad For The Jews. They were wary people, who understood that a Jew always had to be careful, even in America. They could smell antisemitism, and they believed that a Jew could not count on the authorities, or on his non-Jewish neighbors if the worse happened. I was close to them, closer than to my Americanized parents, and I became this kind of Jew as well.

Most younger American Jews do not display this heightened awareness, this almost paranoid (but not unreasonable) consciousness of their Jewish marginality, as Jeremy Ben Ami of J Street explained to a NY Times reporter several years ago:

The average age of the dozen or so staff members is about 30. [J Street director Jeremy] Ben-Ami speaks for, and to, this post-Holocaust generation. “They’re all intermarried,” he says. “They’re all doing Buddhist seders.” They are, he adds, baffled by the notion of “Israel as the place you can always count on when they come to get you.”

That notion is not baffling to me and certainly wouldn’t have been to my grandparents.

My alarm bells went off when the President chose Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense. I am not especially worried by officials of our government, even presidents, who are not particularly friendly to Israel. As Hagel himself said, they are American senators, or congressmen, or cabinet members, not Israelis. The trouble is that this guy — like another Obama nominee for an important post, Chas Freeman — is way over on the hostile side.

Hagel’s problem with Israel is so consistent over time and over issues, that it’s hard to believe it is wholly rational. The most recent example is his 2007 statement (which he says he “can’t recall making”) that “the State Department was becoming an adjunct of the Israeli Foreign Ministry.”

The assertion that the State Department — that bureau which fought tooth and nail to prevent Harry Truman from recognizing the Jewish state, which does not believe that any part of Jerusalem belongs to Israel, and which maintains a US Embassy to ‘Palestine’ in the capital of Israel (which it doesn’t recognize) — is dominated by Israel, is beyond ludicrous. So why did he make it?

This statement is ‘ZOG’ (Zionist Occupation Government) stuff, an expression of one of the central anti-Jewish myths, that of a shadowy Jewish conspiracy pulling the strings that control our government. It fits with Hagel’s use of the phrase ‘Jewish lobby’, and his suggestion that the lobby “intimidates” US officials.

Hagel’s supporters are pushing this theme to the max. Stephen Walt wrote,

…if the lobby takes Hagel down, it will provide even more evidence of its power, and the extent to which supine support for Israel has become a litmus test for high office in America. [my emphasis]

Ah, the powerful lobby! Ask M J Rosenberg:

The onslaught is unprecedented. Never before has virtually the entire organized Jewish community combined to stop a presidential cabinet appointment because it deems the potential nominee insufficiently devoted to Israel. …

The onslaught against Hagel is unique however because the reason for it is not merely that he opposes the rush to war with Iran and favors negotiating an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The reason is because he dared to refer to the existence of the Israel lobby. He said this in 2008 in an interview with former State Department official, Aaron Miller.

…

“The Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here,” but as he put it, “I’m a United States senator. I’m not an Israeli senator.”

That quote will likely doom Hagel’s candidacy because, if there is one institution that is considered untouchable, it is the Israel lobby and its power. [my emphasis]

Their theme is that “The Lobby” will “punish” Hagel and Obama for their disrespect. The same point is made by Patrick Slattery on (yes) DavidDuke.com:

AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which represent the official command center of organized American Jewry, have come out beating their chests over his public acknowledgement of the existence of the 800-pound gorilla of a “Jewish lobby.” On the other hand, “liberal” Zionists like Thomas Freidman and Peter Beirnart are defending Hagel, perhaps because nothing can draw public attention to the power of an 800-pound gorilla more than the gorilla ripping to pieces a respected public figure in broad daylight. [my emphasis]

All this diverts attention from other important questions about Hagel, like “is he competent to run the massive enterprise that is the Defense Department?” and, given his opposition to both economic sanctions and the use of force, “what does putting Hagel is in the chain of command of the US armed forces tell Iran about our resolve to stop them from getting nuclear weapons?” That may be the idea.

But that’s the business of our Senate, most of which unfortunately follows the President like a lapdog. As for me, I’m just a Zhid from a village in the Ukraine who knows when something, or someone, stinks.

Bill #Maher Takes On #GOP Opposition To #Hagel Over Israel: ‘The #Israelis Are Controlling Our Government’

Bill Maher tonight took on the GOP opposition to Chuck Hagel becoming the next defense secretary with the particular sticking point that he has made some controversial remarks about Israeli influence on the U.S. government. Maher argued the fact that this is causing such outrage only proves that the Israeli government does have undue influence on the United States.
RELATED: SNL’s Cut Cold Open Savages Republicans For Their Excessive Praise Of Israel At Chuck Hagel Hearings
Maher was, firstly, stunned that the Republicans are working this hard to fight the nomination of a member of thir own party. The Daily Caller’s Jamie Weinstein explained that they are still trying to vet Hagel before the final vote. Maher couldn’t understand what they find “suspicious about him,” asking “he’s a right-wing Republican and that’s not good enough?”
Weinstein told Maher that there are more comments by Hagel being unearthed, one of which features a remark by Hagel that the State Department is run by the Israeli government. Maher stated that this is a matter of fact.

“Based on every statement I’ve heard from every Republican in the last two years, the Israelis are controlling our government.”

Watch the video below, courtesy of HBO:

—–
Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

via mediaite.com

...but it doesn't seem like Israelis are controlling the media. Right Bill Maher? What is pulling the talking head strings... hmmm... probably the same people that financed Matt Damon's films

Chuck Hagel questioned by Ted Cruz in confirmation hearing

America is a Bully?

#Hagel got Eisenhower very, very wrong

In an earlier post, I noted Chuck Hagel's admiration for the 34th President of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, specifically for Eisenhower's handling of what's known in Israel as the Sinai campaign (the 1956 war between Israel, Britain and France on one side and Egypt on the other). I also reported that Hagel had it all wrong, because Eisenhower later believed that making Israel withdraw from Sinai was the biggest mistake of his Presidency.
Lee Smith has a lot more details about Eisenhower's regrets over the Sinai campaign.

In fact, Eisenhower came to believe that Suez had been the “biggest foreign-policy blunder of his administration.” In hindsight, it’s not hard to see why. He ruined the position of two longtime allies, effectively driving Britain out of the Middle East once and for all, and without any benefit to American interests. If Eisenhower expected Nasser to be grateful, he was sorely mistaken.

“From Nasser’s perspective, he played the superpowers against each other and came out the winner,” says Michael Doran, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy. “What Ike thought he was doing was laying the groundwork for a new order in the Middle East, a third course between the re-imposition of European colonialism and the Soviet Union. But all Eisenhower did was strengthen Nasser and destabilize the region.”

Doran, a former George W. Bush Administration National Security Council staffer in charge of the Middle East, is finishing a book about Eisenhower and the Middle East that looks at how Eisenhower’s understanding of the region changed over time. “Eisenhower slammed his allies and aided his enemies at Suez,” Doran explains, “because his policy was based on certain key assumptions of how the Arab world worked. The most important of these was the notion of Arab unity. He believed they would respond as a bloc to certain stimuli.”

Chief among them, Eisenhower and his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles believed, was the Arab-Israeli conflict. They saw the role of the United States then as playing the honest broker, mediating between Israel on one side and the Arab world on the other. If this conceit is still popular today with American policymakers, says Doran, “it’s partly because some Arab officials continue to talk this way. The idea is, to win over the Arabs we have to stop being so sympathetic to Israel.”

But in the wake of Suez, Eisenhower came to see the region through a different lens. He paid more attention to what Arab leaders actually did, rather than what they said. “Between March 1957 and July 1958, Eisenhower got the equivalent of the Arab spring,” says Doran. “It was a revolutionary wave around the region and for Ike a tutorial on Arab politics. There was upheaval after upheaval, in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and then the Iraqi revolution of 1958 that toppled an American ally. All of them were internal conflicts, tantamount to Arab civil wars, and had nothing to do with Israel. With this, Eisenhower recognized that the image he had of the Arab world had nothing to do with the political realities of the Middle East.”

Read the whole thing.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Obama has the same mistaken conception of the Middle East that Eisenhower had in 1956. Today's it's known as linkage. By 1958, Eisenhower had dismissed it as a policy strategy. Don't bet on Obama doing the same.

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

If Iran kills two million Jews in an afternoon they will find a way to blame George W. Bush

On orders from Moscow, American Jewish Communists suspended criticism of Hitler during the August 1939-June 1941 period of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. Violation of that edict was called “premature antifascism” and men died for it. The left-wing group-think party line far outranks Zionism for many, many Jews. You are going to see this in the immediate future, as Mr. Obama lines up his many Jewish friends and supporters to back Mr. Hagel.

Hagel denies Armenian genocide

Armenian-American leaders and human rights advocates have expressed deep reservations about the nomination of Chuck Hagel to lead the defense department.
Hagel, a two-term Republican senator from Nebraska, was nominated Monday as President Barack Obama’s pick to head the Pentagon. He faces criticism for opposing a 2005 congressional resolution recognizing Turkey’s genocide of more than one million Armenians.
“What happened in 1915 happened in 1915,” Hagel said during a 2005 trip to Armenia when he was serving in the Senate. “As one United States senator, I think the better way to deal with this is to leave it open to historians and others to decide what happened and why.”
“The fact is that this region needs to move forward,” Hagel continued. “We need to find a lasting, just peace between Turkey and Armenia and the other nations of this region. I am not sure that by going back and dealing with that in some way that causes one side or the other to be put in difficult spot, helps move the peace process forward.”
Armenian-American leaders and genocide experts decried these comments as insensitive and dangerous. They maintain that Hagel’s willingness to overlook the systematic genocide of more than one million people raises concerns about his possible tenure as the nation’s top defense official.
“Senator Hagel’s remarks from 2005 ignore a proud chapter in U.S. history during which America’s diplomatic community played an important role denouncing human rights violations and setting an example of humanitarian assistance on behalf of a people at risk,” said Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the nonpartisan Armenian Assembly of America. (more)

you can't say Hagel has not been consistent in his loyalties. It would be interesting now that Turkey has a proxy war with Iran in Syria where his bias would leave him. I really don't want to find this out however.

Colin Powell: It’s ‘disgraceful’ to play anti-Semitic card against Hagel | Capital J

(JTA) During his "Meet The Press" appearance over the weekend, Colin Powell ordered Chuck Hagel to write 100 times on a blackboard that there is no Jewish lobby, just an Israel lobby.
But Powell also gave Hagel's critics the paddle for playing the anti-Semitism card:

They [hawks] can make all the criticisms they want. When they go over the edge and say because Chuck said Jewish lobby, he is anti-Semitic, that’s disgraceful. We shouldn’t have that kind of language in our dialogue but they’re fully entitled to their views and I didn’t ever think they would go away and not be heard from again.

Didn't Hagel say Jewish Lobby? Did he apologize for it or dig in his heels? Powell is a supporter of Israel in name only... Just like he is a Republican in name only.

Hagel's No-Nukes "Global Zero"

Peter Huessy

Generally it means that even the severely reduced number of warheads deployed in our arsenal would not -- if they were needed in a crisis -- be available for use. If that in fact took place -- with countries hostile to the US having arsenals in excess of the US force -- it would probably be in irresistible invitation to them to attack.

Former Senator Chuck Hagel, nominated to be Secretary of Defense, is also a signatory of what is known as the "Global Zero" plan. It calls for the United States and Russia to begin comprehensive nuclear arms negotiations in early 2013 to achieve zero nuclear weapons worldwide by 2030 in four phases.
 
The Global Zero plan first would remove all US tactical nuclear weapons from US combat bases in Europe to storage facilities in the United States. However, while these tactical US weapons would no longer be able to defend Europe and NATO, Russians weapons would be able to attack all of Europe in a relatively short time -- launching weapons from bases in Russia, where they would be stored, reconstituted and redeployed. Given the nature of such weapons systems, the verification of such efforts would be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
The real eye-opener is that the 1,000 ceiling for the US would include our tactical nuclear weapons and stored weapons for reserve emergencies, and the currently deployed 1,550 weapons. The implication is that Hagel is pushing an 80% cut in overall US deployed weapons. If done proportionately, that would involve a reduction to fewer than roughly 300 total deployed strategic nuclear warheads, a level less than China, and less than India and Pakistan combined.

This further signals the elimination of the US strategic nuclear Triad (air, sea and land) -- 300 accountable warheads would enable the deployment of a limited bomber or submarine or IBM leg of our nuclear deterrent, but certainly not all three legs. This would have the effect, by virtually eliminating all serious deterrent capability to our adversaries, of massively increasing the instability of the international security environment -- a dramatic reversal of the promises made within the New START Treaty ratification process, in which enhancing and maintaining strategic stability was one of the cornerstones of the US Nuclear Posture Review.
By quickly withdrawing our tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, we would be emasculating the extended deterrent umbrella which now covers Europe, and as a result seriously weaken the defense ties to our allies and friends across the Atlantic. There would also be a corresponding weakening of our deterrent umbrella over the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, just at a time when these three nations, and others, are threatened by an expanding North Korean missile and nuclear weapons capability and a major modernization program by China of its nuclear weapons. The result, based on reasonable mid-point estimates of the current PRC arsenal, would be a Chinese deployed nuclear arsenal in excess of that deployed by the United States, to say nothing of what Peking could deploy in the near and intermediate future.
The Global Zero plan also calls for "de-alerting" our nuclear weapons. That would mean any number of things, but generally it means even the severely reduced number of warheads in our deployed arsenal would not, in a crisis, be available for use if they were needed. The warheads might be removed from their missiles or bombers; they might be disabled and stored remotely -- requiring many hours, days, or longer to be redeployed.
Previous administrations, as well as the current government, have in various ways discussed and considered such a move. In every instance, de-alerting has been firmly rejected. First, the proposal is totally unverifiable. Second, it is highly destabilizing: in a crisis, there would be a race to re-alert and rearm, making the first and sudden use of nuclear weapons a greater or more likely possibility. Third, de-alerting solves no "nuclear" problem, whether in concerns abut proliferation, threats of an electro-magnetic pulse [EMP] attack, or any other deterrent or arms control requirement.
The second phase of the Global Zero plan would occur from 2014-2018. In a multilateral framework, the US and Russia would agree to reduce to 500 total warheads each, to be implemented by 2021. All other countries, including China, Pakistan, North Korea and others, would freeze their nuclear stockpiles until 2018, followed by proportionate reductions until 2021 -- irrespective of whether the US deployed arsenal was smaller and less effective than many other countries. If in fact that took place — with nations hostile to the US having arsenals in excess of the US force -- it would be the first time in the history of the nuclear age that such an event took place, and probably an irresistible invitation to them to attack.
Moreover, this plan assumes that a comprehensive verification and enforcement system will have been established -- including agreed-on no-notice, on-site inspections, and that safeguards on the civilian nuclear fuel cycle would be strengthened to prevent their being diverted to build weapons.
The final two phases would include a "binding" 'Global Zero Accord' between 2019-2023, signed by all nuclear capable countries, for the phased, verified, proportionate reduction of all nuclear arsenals to zero total warheads by 2030. The whopping loophole in this plan is that any nation deeming itself not nuclear-capable could opt out of such an agreement, then be completely free to surprise the world with a nuclear arsenal once all the major powers had eliminated theirs.
Between 2024-2030, finally, there would be a complete "phased, verified, proportionate dismantlement of all nuclear arsenals to zero total warheads by 2030," with an accompanying comprehensive verification and enforcement system prohibiting the development and possession of nuclear weapons.
Apart from the "Alice in Wonderland" nature of this proposal, there is the sense that its advocates share a less than serious understanding of both the nature of US deterrence needs, and the geopolitical balance between the United States and Russia, not amenable to international or treaty law.

via docstalk.blogspot.com

Odds stacked against Hagel

(Carl)Here's retiring Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Ct) talking about Chuck Hagel's chances of becoming Secretary of Defense.
Let's go to the videotape.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! We all know Obama never wanted those sanctions anyway!

(Log Cabin Republicans also oppose Chuck Hagel)“Chuck Hagel: Wrong on gay rights. Wrong on Iran. Wrong on Israel,” the Log Cabin Republican ad says. “Tell President Obama that Chuck Hagel is wrong for Defense Secretary.”
The ad also reflects criticism that Hagel is not a big enough supporter of Israel, and is not tough enough on Iran.

Report: Hagel going under the bus

Maybe Obama didn't want Hagel because Hagel was too loyal to the enemies of the Saudis and Sunni

(Carl)Chuck Hagel may be headed under the bus.

Besieged by criticism from right and left, and considerable skepticism from his former Senate colleagues, Chuck Hagel appears to be following the path of Susan Rice as a trial-balloon nominee who finds himself quickly losing altitude in Washington. And as happened with Rice, the White House is now signaling that it may soon puncture Hagel's hopes.

Just as occurred with Rice, the U.N. ambassador whose prospective nomination as secretary of State—leaked to the media—flamed out in the face of widespread criticism of her, President Obama appears to be rethinking his choice for Defense secretary.

A senior administration official told National Journal on Sunday that it was “fair” to say Obama is considering candidates other than Hagel for Defense secretary, in particular Michele Flournoy who was under secretary of Defense for policy in Obama's first term, and Ashton Carter, the current deputy Defense secretary. Only a week ago, Bloomberg News reported that Hagel was Obama’s top choice.

The White House's revised characterization of Hagel’s standing came after what was, for the former Republican senator, a particularly discouraging series of comments on the Sunday-morning talk shows. Outgoing Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that it would be “a very tough confirmation process,” while on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Hagel’s former fellow Republican in the Senate, Lindsey Graham, said Hagel’s would be “a challenging nomination.” Graham added: “I don’t think he’s going to get many Republican votes.”

Is Chuck Hagel About To Go The Way of Susan Rice?

The Atlantic had an Op Ed saying Chuck won't fuck with the gays in the military. The wagons are circling. A sense a vulnerability. Getting Hagel in could be Obama's dream cuz he pulls in the Ron Paul people. Sadly I think not only are these people a threat, they are also a threat to themselves. Obama wants intervention in Syria. Where does Hagel fit in here? Is he closer to the Shia or the Sunni? It is almost like the far right have their hand out to the Shia and Obama of course we know where he stands with the Sunni. To bring Hagel in would consolidate loyalties, but I'm not even sure Obama wants to be loyal to Iran because he's loyal to the Sunni. This is a complicated dynamic. I've thought so badly of Obama for so long that it never occurred to me that he might not want Hagel very much either. Where did this slip of Hagel being a homophobe come from? The NYTimes? hmmmm.... my theory says Obama is backstabbing his own nominee. I think Obama wants to look like he is sharing power and then take it away. Yes,,, that is exactly what I think.

(Daniel Greenfield)Rice’s goose wasn’t cooked until liberals began attacking her over Keystone and Africa. There are now signs that Hagel is coming under fire from liberals as well.

Daily Kos is taking a shot at Hagel over environmental issues, which have ridiculously become a big part of the Pentagon under Obama Inc. And the New York Times is taking a shot at him over gay rights, which under Obama Inc, is ridiculously also a big part of what the Pentagon does now.
Hagel can and will quickly backpedal on global warming and gay rights. It’s certainly easier for him to do this than it was for Rice to undo everything that she had done wrong in Africa. But the liberal attacks are a symptom of what may be the growing conflict between liberals and Obama.
Approaching the 2012 election, Obama began insincerely throwing out a grab bag of party favors to liberals, including gay rights and an executive amnesty for Mexican illegal aliens, but the left intends to make sure that they extract maximum value from O’s second term and that means repeated confrontations that are meant to push him to the left while challenging the orthodoxy of his nominees.
The choice of Hagel was a strange one to begin with. Bringing in Hagel three years ago would have been a clever way to provide cover for an Iraq withdrawal with a Republican anti-war senator. Bringing him in now is mostly useless. Gay rights has been shoved into the military. Iraq is done. Afghanistan is coming up but not much political cover is needed for a war that most people think should end.
Romney hardly attacked Obama on foreign policy, aside from Israel, and that’s where Hagel has the worst possible record. There really is no benefit to a Hagel nomination without a pro-war and anti-war debate in the country. Indeed Obama these days is pushing his own “clean” wars that Republicans rarely dissent from.
Hagel is anti-military and favors major defense cuts, so bringing him to do the dirty work has some utility, but it’s not clear that anyone cares. Republicans have barely made it an issue. Romney failed to defend the military against Tricare health care cuts, which would have been a smart issue to jump on. Most Americans do oppose major defense cuts, but they had the chance to vote against that in November. And it’s not about to stop Obama. Nor does Obama have any further reason to care what the voters who stayed home or foolishly swung over to him, but are nevertheless pro-military, think.
Liberals naturally want one of their own in there. Why waste a major portfolio on a former Republican with a droopy face whose useful expired in 2007?
The second term is usually the spoils of war term. It’s the circular firing squads term. And the Republican collapse has made liberals even more eager to fight over the spoils. They don’t see any point in sharing them with Chuck Hagel.

We sometimes don't give Obama enough credit. I don't like him, but he got reelected by playing the game like a master. I really think he is sabotaging his own candidate.

A Bagel for Hagel

(Care for a “hagel” and lox? Um, no thanks!)

Paleo Conservative rump served medium rare. Tastes like chicken. #Hagel can support Hezbollah and terrorists, but they won't let him be a homophobe. Obama's Anti Zionist for Defense is about to be eaten by the vultures at the NYTimes. Aw too bad! (SheikYerMami)Brzezinski Backs Hagel, Accuses Critics of Loyalty to Foreign Interests. The usual suspects. Or, if you prefer: birds of a feather. Brzezinski told the MSNBC anchor team, which includes his (unhinged)  daughter Mika, that Hagel’s “critics, they would like to plunge the U.S. into some new wars, promptly, and not always for U.S. national interest.”  (Who? The Jews, of course!) Who’d have thought? WaPo comes out against  Hagel: Chuck Hagel is not the right choice for defense secretary Scaramouche: Obama Set to Appoint “Ferociously Anti-Israel” Senator as His Next Sec’y of Defense; Ironically, His Name Rhymes With “Bagel” Why would Obama tap Senator Chuck Hagel for the job? Mincing no words, Caroline Glick ‘splains it like this: "Obama wants to hurt Israel. He does not like Israel. He is appointing anti-Israel advisors and cabinet members not despite their anti-Israel positions, but because of them." Meanwhile, pseudo-Zionist outfit J Street high fives the selection, prompting this wry quip over at The Corner: If there were any questions remaining regarding his fitness for Secretary of Defense, JStreet’s endorsement should be the final strike against him.

What it will take to defeat Hagel

If President Obama decides to nominate Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary, here's an idea of what it will take to defeat him.

Defeating a Hagel nomination, however, will be more difficult than mounting a vocal opposition, in large part due to the Senate’s tradition of collegiality. Tradition indicates the Senate would extend a former senator — one whose Senate colleagues would be directly involved in his confirmation — considerable latitude. Sources say that, in order for the opposition to have a real chance at defeating a possible Hagel nomination, a sitting senator — around whom others can rally — must be willing to mount a battle against him. A founder of the non-partisan national security organization Secure America Now, Allen Roth tells National Review Online, “If nobody takes the lead in the Senate,” it’s unlikely the Hagel foes will be able to get much traction. “We’re at the early stages of this,” says Brooks. “My sense is obviously that there will be somebody that emerges. I just haven’t heard of anybody yet.”

Who will take the lead? Jim DeMint is gone. Joe Lieberman will be gone. John McCain? Don't make me laugh. I'd bet on two Senators, from opposite sides of the aisle: Marco Rubio (because he's impeccably honest and pro-Israel and won't just hold his nose and vote in favor) and Chuck Schumer (because New York voters will destroy him in 2016 - when he's up for reelection - if he doesn't take action to stop Hagel). 
And it's not just about Israel. It's also about Iran:

The concerns over a Hagel nomination extend beyond the former senator’s views on Israel. A senior congressional aide tells me that it is the former senator’s views on Iran that may ultimately prove to be the major roadblock to his confirmation. “That’s the biggest question that will be asked,” he says. The RJC’s Brooks echoed this, noting, “The next secretary of defense is going to have to deal with [Iran’s drive for a nuclear weapon] on Day One.” Hagel’s views on the matter, says Brooks, “put him at odds ostensibly with the administration position, with the Senate, with the Congress, and with the American people.”

In the Senate, Hagel consistently voted against imposing sanctions on Iran and has for years advocated unconditional negotiations with the regime. “Isolating nations is risky,” he has said. “It turns them inward, and makes their citizens susceptible to the most demagogic fear mongering.” He has also suggested that he may not be opposed to Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon. “The genie of nuclear armaments is already out of the bottle, no matter what Iran does,” he wrote in his book. “In this imperfect world, sovereign nation-states possessing nuclear weapons capability . . . will often respond with some degree of responsible, or at least sane, behavior.” Hagel “comes from a growing school of thought — I guess Ron Paul is one of the godfathers of this,” observes Roth, “that if we have enough free trade and talk to our enemies enough, they’ll leave us alone.”

Could we see another Kirk-Menendez tag team?

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary - Bring it On!

(CarolineGlick.com)Many in the American Jewish community are aghast to discover that President Obama is planning to appoint former Senator Chuck Hagel to serve as Defense Secretary. If you want the skinny on how Hagel has come to be known as one of the few ferociously anti-Israel senators in the past generation, Carl from Jerusalem at Israel Matzav provides it.
Meantime, all I can say is I don't understand how anyone can possibly be surprised. Shortly after word came out that Hagel is the frontrunner for the nomination, I read a quaint little blog post written by a conservative leaning commentator voicing her belief that Obama wouldn't want to risk his relations with Israel's supporters by appointing Hagel. But as Powerline pointed out today, this is the entire point of the nomination. Obama isn't stupid. He picks fights he thinks he can win. He hasn't always been right about those fights. He picked fights with Netanyahu thinking he could win, and he lost some of those.
But he is right to think he can win the Hagel fight. The Republican Senators aren't going to get into a fight with Obama about his DOD appointee, especially given that it's one of their fellow senators, even though many of them hate him. The Democrats are certainly not going to oppose him.
Obama wants to hurt Israel. He does not like Israel. He is appointing anti-Israel advisors and cabinet members not despite their anti-Israel positions, but because of them.
Some commentators said that Susan Rice would be bad because she was anti-Israel and they hoped that Obama would appoint someone pro-Israel. But John Kerry is no friend of Israel. And as far as I was concerned, we would have been better off with Rice on the job.
Unlike Kerry, Rice is politically inept. She walked into Sen. John McCain's office with the intention of convincing Sens. McCain, Lindsey Graham and Oympia Snowe that she was competent to serve as Secretary of State despite the fact that she deliberately misled the public on what happened at the Sept. 11 jihadist attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.
But she failed. In commenting on the meeting, all three senators said they were more concerned after speaking with Rice than they were before they did. That is, they said she was a political incompetent. Can there be any doubt that Sen. Kerry will be able to play the politics of Capitol Hill far more effectively than Rice?
And what reason does anyone have to believe that Assad's great defender will be any more supportive of Israel than Rice would have been? But with him in the driver's seat now, instead of having a political incompetent whom no one can stand serving as the spokesman for Obama's anti-Israel foreign policy, in Kerry we will have a competent, reasonably popular politician on the job.
It's time for people to realize the game has changed. Obama won.
Obama won with 70 percent of the Jewish vote despite the fact that his record in his first term was more hostile to Israel than any president since Jimmy Carter. No one can expect him now, after his victory, to feel even slightly constrained in his desire to weaken the US relationship with Israel.
So far, he has made clear that he feels no constraints whatsoever. Take the Palestinians at the UN for example. Obama enabled the Palestinians to get their non-member state status at the UN by failing to threaten to cut off US funding to the UN in retaliation for such a vote.
Both Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush issued such threats during their tenures in office and so prevented the motion from coming to a vote. Given that the Palestinians have had an automatic majority in the General Assembly since at least 1975, the only reason their status was only upgraded in 2012 is because until then, either the PLO didn't feel like raising the issue or the US threatened to cut off its financial support to the UN if such a motion passed.  This year PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas said he wanted to have a vote and Obama responded by not issuing a threat to cut off UN funding. So the Palestinians got their vote and, as expected, it passed overwhelmingly.
Seeing the upgrade as a Palestinian move is a mistake. It was a joint Palestinian-American move.
And Obama made that move and no one balked. Indeed some New York Jews applauded it.
Let there be no doubt, Obama will get Hagel in at Defense. And Hagel will place Israel in his crosshairs.
The only way to foil Obama's ill intentions towards Israel even slightly is to be better at politics than he is. And he's awfully good.
Moreover, one of his strongest advantages is that Israel's supporters seem to have never gotten the memo. So here it is: Obama wants to fundamentally transform the US relationship with Israel.
He isn't playing by the old rules. He doesn't care about the so-called Israel lobby or the Jewish vote. As he sees it, to paraphrase Jim Baker, "F#&k the Jews, they voted for us anyway."
As strange as it may sound, I am slightly relieved by Hagel's appointment, and by my trust that Kerry will be a loyal mouthpiece of Obama's hostility. The more "in our faces" they are with their hostility, the smaller our ability to deny their hostility or pretend that we can continue to operate as if nothing has changed. As we face four more years of Obama - and four years of Obama unplugged -- the most urgent order of business for Israelis is to stop deluding ourselves in thinking that under Obama the US can be trusted. So welcome aboard Secretary Hagel. Bring it on.

Time for Obama's court Jew to speak out against Hagel

For someone who got Chuck Hagel so right in 2007 - in a post that was disappeared down the memory hole, but may still be found via the Way Back Machine - Ira Forman's silence is deafening. Forman, chair of the National Jewish Democratic Council and most recently the Obama campaign's liaison to the Jewish community, had this to say about Hagel in March 2007.

As Senator Hagel sits around for six more months and tries to decide whether to launch a futile bid for the White House, he has a lot of questions to answer about his commitment to Israel.  Consider this:

- In August 2006, Hagel was one of only 12 Senators who refused to write the EU asking them to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization.
- In October 2000, Hagel was one of only 4 Senators who refused to sign a Senate letter in support of Israel.
- In November 2001, Hagel was one of only 11 Senators who refsued to sign a letter urging President Bush not to meet with the late Yassir Arafat until his forces ended the violence against Israel.
- In December 2005, Hagel  was one of only 27 who refused to sign a letter to President Bush to pressure the Palestinian Authroity to ban terrorist groups from participating in Palestinian legislative elections. 
- In June 2004, Hagel refused to sign a letter urging President Bush to highlight Iran's nuclear program at the G-8 summit.

In 2009, when Hagel was appointed to be co-chair of President Obama's National Intelligence Advisory Board, Forman had this to say:

Back in 2009, when President Obama appointed Hagel to co-chair the President's National Intelligence Advisory Board, the NJDC's then executive director, Ira Forman, reserved criticism, as The Weekly Standard reported at the time.

"Anybody who's looking for purity from us is going to be disappointed," he said, after apparently being pressed to criticize Hagel's appointment. Forman at the time also suggested that the RJC was engaging in selective criticism and hadn't been so exercised about Hagel until the former Republican senator was embraced by Obama.

But Forman (who since went on to be the 2012 Obama campaign’s Jewish outreach coordinator) added: "If [Hagel] was taking a policy role, we'd have real concerns."

Secretary of Defense sure sounds like a 'policy role' to me. But last week, Forman refused to comment when contacted by the Daily Beast's Eli Lake.
Hagel doesn't just represent someone who is anti-Israel or who is an obsessive believer in 'engagement.' As Bret Stephens points out in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Hagel has attempted to tar American Jews with the anti-Semitic canard of dual loyalty.

Prejudice—like cooking, wine-tasting and other consummations—has an olfactory element. When Chuck Hagel, the former GOP senator from Nebraska who is now a front-runner to be the next secretary of Defense, carries on about how "the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here," the odor is especially ripe.

Ripe because a "Jewish lobby," as far as I'm aware, doesn't exist. No lesser authorities on the subject than John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of "The Israel Lobby," have insisted the term Jewish lobby is "inaccurate and misleading, both because the [Israel] lobby includes non-Jews like Christian Zionists and because many Jewish Americans do not support the hard-line policies favored by its most powerful elements."

Ripe because, whatever other political pressures Mr. Hagel might have had to endure during his years representing the Cornhusker state, winning over the state's Jewish voters—there are an estimated 6,100 Jewish Nebraskans in a state of 1.8 million people—was probably not a major political concern for Mr. Hagel compared to, say, the ethanol lobby. 

Ripe because the word "intimidates" ascribes to the so-called Jewish lobby powers that are at once vast, invisible and malevolent; and because it suggests that legislators who adopt positions friendly to that lobby are doing so not from political conviction but out of personal fear. Just what does that Jewish Lobby have on them?

Ripe, finally, because Mr. Hagel's Jewish lobby remark was well in keeping with the broader pattern of his thinking. "I'm a United States Senator, not an Israeli Senator," Mr. Hagel told retired U.S. diplomat Aaron David Miller in 2006. "I'm a United States Senator. I support Israel. But my first interest is I take an oath of office to the Constitution of the United States. Not to a president. Not a party. Not to Israel. If I go run for Senate in Israel, I'll do that."

Read these staccato utterances again to better appreciate their insipid and insinuating qualities, all combining to cast the usual slur on Jewish-Americans: Dual loyalty. Nobody questions Mr. Hagel's loyalty. He is only making those assertions to question the loyalty of others.

When someone in as prominent a position as Hagel is making those kinds of assertions against American Jewry, it's time for the American Jewish leadership to circle the wagons and fight back. And yet, Ira Forman is hiding in the brush along the side of the road (as, admittedly, are many others who find anti-Semitism in every pro-Israel pronouncement of a Christian Zionist - I looked in vain for a statement about Hagel from Abe Foxman over the last month).
What's the matter, Ira? Cat got your tongue? Or has Obama threatened your pocket?

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

Hagel’s Atlantic Council Publishes “Israel Apartheid” Column

Hagel’s Atlantic Council Publishes “Israel Apartheid” Column

Alana Goodman
Here’s the home page of the Atlantic Council today, which is chaired by Obama’s potential secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel (h/t Noah Pollak):

The column, by Atlantic Council member Arnaud de Borchgrave, makes the followingargument:

A majority of Israelis recoil in horror at the very thought of emulating the regime of apartheid, a system of institutionalized racial segregation once practiced in South Africa, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Yet that is what Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu considers less threatening than full-fledged Palestinian independence.

Apartheid is what gradually emerged in the West Bank under Israeli occupation since Israel’s victory in the Six Day War almost half a century ago. 

In South Africa during the Cold War, apartheid was seen as the only effective defense against world communism. And the African National Congress saw the Soviet Union as its best bet for dismantling apartheid and establishing black majority rule.

Netanyahu and his Likud Party allies now view continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank as the lesser of two evils.

Critics have long used the debunked apartheid analogy as a way to delegitimize and slander Israel. With the buzz growing over Hagel’s potential nomination, it’s surprising that his organization would publish such a blatant attack on Israel on the front page of its website on today of all days.

At the Daily Beast, Eli Lake provides more details on the pro-Israel community’s opposition to Hagel’s possible nomination:

A senior pro-Israel advocate in Washington told The Daily Beast on Thursday, “The pro-Israel community will view the nomination of Senator Chuck Hagel in an extremely negative light. His record is unique in its animus towards Israel.”

Josh Block, a former spokesman for AIPAC and the CEO and president of the Israel Project, told The Daily Beast, “While in the Senate, Hagel voted against designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, refused to call on the E.U. to designate Hezbollah a terrorist group, and consistently voted against sanctions on Iran for their illicit pursuit of nuclear weapons capability. It is a matter of fact that his record on these issues puts him well outside the mainstream Democratic and Republican consensus.”

In the past, Hagel has even garnered opposition from pro-Israel Democrats who have defended Obama’s Israel record. Ira Forman, who was in charge of the Obama reelection campaign’s outreach to Jewish voters, said in 2009—after Hagel was named co-chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board—that he would have opposed Hagel’s nomination for a more substantive position. (Forman declined to comment on Hagel’s possible nomination Thursday.) 

According to a Hagel ally quoted in the article, he will likely try to mount a charm offensive with pro-Israel senators. If that’s the plan, publishing articles like the one above probably isn’t the best way to go about it.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/12/14/hagels-atlantic-council-publishe...

via israeljewsjudaism.blogspot.com