Hagel & The Mullahs (video) & Here It Comes, Here It Comes Again (video)

The Emergency Committee for Israel continues its seemingly well-justified campaign against Defense Secretary nominee Senator Chuck Hagel.  This advertisement, entitled "Endorsed," is due to air on television screens in Washington, DC and New York from tomorrow.  It contrasts Hagel's views on the Iranian regime, which he described last week as "elected" and "legitimate," with Hillary Clinton's description of the regime as a "military dictatorship".

And now, as a video bonus, a rude reminder that this annual excrescence will soon be upon us:

Meanwhile, the disturbing impact on Jewish students caused by the shameful support by a majority of the professors in the Political Science Department at Brooklyn College for the department's co-sponsorship of a BDS event on campus is evident in this lament:

"... I don’t think this is just a pro-Palestinian event, this is an anti-Israel event. The speakers have a history of speaking about the destruction of Israel. BDS is not just a pro-Palestinian group, it’s anti-Israel. So for them to sponsor this event is troubling to me because it seems as though they are taking a side. Which is something that should not be happening at a college.

 As a Jew, as someone who supports Israel, it makes me feel very uncomfortable sitting in front of these teachers."

Read more here

Would You Entrust America's Defence To This Man? (video)

Well might all who seek Israel's welfare express dismay at the prospect of Senator Chuck Hagel as US Secretary for Defense: Isi Leibler's recent piece is one of a number of articles by various pundits articulating deeply held and highly justified misgivings.

Asks Noah Pollak, executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI):

"Is it too much to ask that the nominee for Secretary of Defense understands the policy of the Obama administration on the single most important national security challenge facing the United States?"

Indeed.

Here's a video released today by the ECI.  It highlights Hagel's confused response, at his confirmation hearing last Thursday, to questions about the Obama administration's policy towards Iran.  Having viewed it on YouTube, one well-known blogger, the irrepressible Yisrael Medad, commented "Dumb and Dumbest"; an unkind assessment of the nominee for the Defense Secretaryship's performance, perhaps, but not inappropriate.

For Hagel initially asserted he supported Obama's policy of "containment," meaning containing Iran after it acquires nuclear weapons.  Then he made a bumbling attempt to correct himself, saying the administration "takes no position" on containment.  Finally, he had to be told by Senator Carl Levin that "we do not favour containment."  Oy!

Hagel Woos The Jews Who Matter

"Chuck Hagel does not publicly advocate Israel’s destruction, but there is more to the issue than this. To be pro-Israel one needn’t be a fan of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu or of his hapless political opponents.

But Americans who purport to care about Israel’s fate do need to respect its democratic process and understand that the idea that Americans have the right to override the judgment of the voters there is illegitimate. Israel, like any democracy, especially one that is still besieged by its enemies, has plenty of problems. But it does not need to be saved from itself, especially by those, like Hagel, who have long demonstrated little sympathy with its security dilemmas or alarm about the existential threats facing it.

People ... who claim that respect for the stands of Netanyahu’s coalition—which commands the support of a far larger share of Israel’s voters than President Obama won here in 2008 or 2012—is not consistent with supporting Israel are way out of line. So, too, are their attempts to brand the overwhelming majority of Americans who think Israel’s government deserves U.S. support as a conspiracy of neoconservatives and others who don’t speak for the best interest of this country or the Jewish community.

The failure of 20 years of peace processing and concessions to the Palestinians effectively destroyed the Israeli left. That is why Netanyahu is poised to be re-elected later this month with a coalition that is more right-wing than his last government. That may dismay many Americans, but they need to understand that it is the result of Israelis looking at the facts and drawing the inevitable conclusions from them. Unfortunately, many Americans prefer to ignore the reality of the Middle East. Such dreamers who insist on blaming Israel for the lack of peace can call themselves what they like, but that does not allow them to pose as the country’s ardent friends the way Hagel and his fans are trying to.

Hagel is a decorated veteran and a loyal supporter of President Obama. Those are both good reasons for him to sit in the president’s cabinet. But his views on Israel and Iran don’t mesh with the public positions of the president or most Americans. No amount of rhetorical overkill or disingenuous attacks on the pro-Israel community can disguise this fact. Nor can they transform him from the proud opponent of the “Jewish lobby” into the Jewish state’s friend.'

Thus inveighed Jonathan S. Tobin at the conclusion of a heartfelt screed a few days ago.  (See also Isi Leibler's powerful article lamenting Hagel's nomination as Secretary of Defense here)

Ben Stein wrote (see my last blogpost but one)

 "Jews in many cases have loyalties that trump their interest to Israel. Their support of Mr. Obama is a case in point.

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."

And so it is that, as the JTA's Ron Kampeas reports from Washington, DC:

'In recent days, Hagel has secured endorsements from three of the most identifiably Jewish and pro-Israel Democratic lawmakers: U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), as well as U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.

The endorsements follow several discussions with lawmakers during which Hagel is said to have expressed regret for the “Jewish lobby” comment. In those discussions, he also assured lawmakers that he is committed to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“In our conversation, Sen. Hagel made a crystal-clear promise that he would do 'whatever it takes' to stop Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons, including the use of military force,” Schumer said in a statement regarding his Monday meeting with Hagel. “He said his 'top priority' as Secretary of Defense would be the planning of military contingencies related to Iran." ....

Calling the term “Jewish lobby” a “very poor choice of words,” Hagel said in a letter to Boxer that “I used that terminology only once, in an interview. I recognize that this kind of language can be construed as anti-Israel.”

He delivered a similar apology over the phone last week to Wasserman Schultz, a flag bearer for Jewish causes among Democrats ...

“He realized some of the things he had said previously were offensive and inappropriate,” Wasserman Schultz told JTA.

Hagel already had the backing of two leading Jewish senators, Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif,), but insiders considered Schumer’s endorsement critical. Schumer has noted repeatedly to Jewish audiences that his name derives from the Hebrew word “shomer,” or guardian, and that he sees Israel’s security as his calling.

Boxer also is a go-to Jewish lawmaker -- she was the lead on a bill last year that enhanced the U.S.-Israel security relationship.

“After speaking extensively with Sen. Hagel by phone last week and after receiving a detailed written response to my questions late today, I will support Sen. Hagel’s nomination as Secretary of Defense,” Boxer said in a release late Monday. “First and foremost, he has pledged without reservation to support President Obama’s polices -- policies that I believe have made our world safer and our alliances stronger.”

Beyond his remarks regarding a “Jewish lobby,” the issues that had exercised Boxer and Wasserman Schultz -- as well as some pro-Israel groups -- had to do with Hagel's past skepticism of the efficacy of unilateral sanctions as a means of keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, as well as his wariness of a military option in the same case.

In his letter to Boxer, Hagel reiterated his preference for multilateral sanctions, noting his past support, but added that unilateral sanctions in some instances were “necessary.” He did not mention the possibility of a strike.

But Wasserman Schultz said that in her phone call with Hagel, “he said that all options should be on the table, including a military option.”

In both interactions, Hagel also noted his solid Senate record voting to fund defense assistance to Israel.

Wasserman Schultz pressed Hagel to explain why he had not signed a number of letters organized by the pro-Israel and Jewish communities, particularly an American Jewish Committee-backed letter in 1999 asking Russian Jewish President Boris Yeltsin to address the rise of violent anti-Semitism. The letter drew 99 signatories out of 100 senators; Hagel was the only one to pass.

The Florida lawmaker told JTA that she was satisfied with his response -- that as a senator he preferred not to write foreign leaders, but over the years wrote Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to express his concern about anti-Semitism overseas....'

Read Ron Kampeas's entire article here

"Poor Israel ... Abandoned By So Many People Who Call Themselves Jewish"

"Poor Israel, poor beleaguered Israel, abandoned by so many people who call themselves Jewish, so alone, so terribly alone."

The words are those of the multi-talented  Ben Stein.

Mr Stein, remembered by an entire generation of now 30-somethings as the soporific economics teacher in the 1980s teen flick Ferris Bueller's Day Off,  is so much more than the sum of the parts he's played in Hollywood.  A Yale-educated lawyer and an economist, he's a prominent Republican writer and speaker.

His latest column in the American Spectator, which concludes with the sentence quoted above, slates Barack  Obama's nomination of Chuck Hagel: "one of the most clearly anti-Israel, anti-Semitic members of the Senate (or ex-members in his case) to be Secretary of Defense".

Mr Stein finds "heartbreaking" the fact that

"Most American Jews clearly supported Mr. Obama in his bid for President against a GOP that has been an incomparably stronger supporter of Israel than the modern-day Democrat party.... Barack Obama’s most productive fund-raisers, especially at the “millionaires and billionaires” level that Mr. Obama supposedly hates so much, were almost unanimously Jews. How they are going to square this with Senator Hagel’s nomination to a post that is of life or death importance to Israel is anyone’s guess.... "

He goes on to observe:

"But here is a clue: the really committed left-wing Jew does not care much about Israel. Jews in many cases have loyalties that trump their interest to Israel. Their support of Mr. Obama is a case in point.

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.

 I hope the people who are supporting Chuck Hagel know that by confirming him, they are cementing at 100 percent that odds that Iran will get a nuclear capability without U.S. interference....

As a student of anti-Semitism in Europe before, during, and after the Holocaust, no amount of hatred and loathing for Jews surprises me. Americans who do love Israel should be aware, though, that it is growing much more likely by the moment that there will be a second Holocaust. The only real friends that Israel has on this earth, evangelical Christians, will take note. Whether anyone else will is a big question."

Read all of Ben Stein's article here

"The Worst Possible Message We Could Send To Our Friend Israel & The Rest Of Our Allies In The Middle East Is Chuck Hagel"

President Obama's nomination of Senator Chuck Hagel as US Secretary of Defense is certainly causing consternation among supporters of Israel.

Jennifer Rubin, who goes on to cite some of the fears being expressed on Capitol Hill about Hagel, opens her article thus:

"President Obama wants to get credit for bipartisanship, so he picks a Republican defense secretary who will garner few if any Republican votes. He walks away from a politically loyal African American woman for secretary of state (whose nomination would open up his political liabilities) but goes forward with a white, Republican man (whose nomination puts gobs of Senate Republicans in an untenable spot). The two groups of Democrats (gays and Jews) who turned out in droves for him watch a nomination proceed with someone who had tried to exclude gays from government and accused Jews of dual loyalty."

One of those Ms Rubin quotes is Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn, who's declared:

"I will not support Chuck Hagel’s nomination to the Department of Defense. His record and past statements, particularly with respect to rogue nations like Iran, are extremely concerning to me. . . . As Iran becomes increasingly hostile and gains influence in the region, the worst possible message we could send to our friend Israel and the rest of our allies in the Middle East is Chuck Hagel."

Similar fears have been voiced by many others, including Alan Dershowitz, who writes, inter alia (see full article here) that Hagel's nomination

"risks increasing the likelihood that Iran will develop nuclear weapons. It poses that risk because Hagel is well known for his opposition both to sanctions against Iran and to employing the military option if necessary.

These views are inconsistent with the very different views expressed by President Obama. The President has emphasized on numerous occasions that he will never allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons and will use military force if necessary to prevent that “game changer.”

The nomination of Hagel thus sends a mixed message to the mullahs in Tehran, who will likely interpret it as a change from a red light to a yellow or green one when it comes to their desire to develop nuclear weapons. Sending a mixed message at this point can increase the chances that Iran will miscalculate and act in a foolheartedly manner thus requiring the actual use of the military option—an eventuality that nobody wants...."

 The Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) has announced that it

"will vigorously oppose the confirmation of Chuck Hagel as our next Secretary of Defense. We have examined Mr. Hagel's public record, which is marked by an animus toward our friend Israel and a surprising solicitude for our enemies Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. We believe Mr. Hagel's record – both his votes and his statements – place him well outside the American mainstream. We look forward to participating in a full and fair debate on Mr. Hagel's record. We trust, at the conclusion of that debate, the United States Senate will withhold its consent to Mr. Hagel's selection as Secretary of Defense"

Hagel's apologists are fighting back, but see the ECI's itemisation of Senator Hagel's record on key foreign policy issues here