Chuck Hagel’s Jewish Problem

ZOA To Pres. Obama: Don’t Nominate Iran- & Terrorist-Apologist & Israel-Basher Chuck Hagel as Defense Sec.

December 17, NEW YORK –The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has urged President Barack Obama not to nominate Iran- and terrorist-apologist and Israel-basher Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense. Chuck Hagel’s record is one of being a frightening and dangerous apologist for terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizballah, as well as for the terrorist regime of Iran, while being arguably one of the most vicious and hostile critics of Israel. The ZOA believes that appointing Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary would also serve to confirm the fears that many have that President Obama is no friend of Israel and is not serious about stopping Iran’s nuclear program.

Reports indicate that the former Nebraska senator and current co-chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, is a front-runner for nomination. A recent report states that President Obama is “expected to announce his nominees for secretaries of state and defense in the next two weeks, with former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel on the short list of potential choices to head the Pentagon, senior administration officials said on Tuesday” (‘Obama to fill key posts in weeks, Hagel on Pentagon short list,’ Reuters, December 4, 2012).

Chuck Hagel’s record:

*   In 2009, Hagel signed a letter urging President Obama to begin direct negotiations with Hamas, a U.S. designated terrorist group committed in its Charter to the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews, a position President Obama has not taken up.

*   In 2008, Hagel was “solely responsible” for blocking an Iran sanctions bill (Seth Colter Walls, ‘Dems Blame Senate GOP For Blocking Iran Sanctions Bill,’ Huffington Post, March 10, 2008).

*   In a 2006 interview with former Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller, Hagel said that “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people” on Capitol Hill (‘Hagel named to intelligence board ,’ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 29, 2009).

*   In August 2006, Hagel was one of only 12 Senators who refused to formally call upon the European Union to declare Hizballah a terrorist organization (‘NJDC Criticizes Senators for Refusing to Call on EU to add Hezbollah to List of Terrorist Organizations,’ National Jewish Democratic Council press release, August 7, 2006).

*   In July 2006, at the outbreak of the Lebanon war, Hagel argued against giving Israel the time to break Hizballah, urging instead an immediate ceasefire (‘Key Republican breaks with Bush on Mideast,’ CNN.com, July 31, 2006).

*   December 2005: Hagel was one of only 27 senators who refused to sign a letter to President Bush urging him to pressure the Palestinian Authority (PA) to ban terrorist groups from participating in Palestinian legislative elections.

*   June 2004, Hagel refused to sign a letter urging President Bush to highlight Iran’s nuclear program at the G-8 summit and was one of only two senators in to vote against renewal of the Libya-Iran sanctions act.

*   November 2001: Hagel was one of only 11 senators who refused to sign a letter urging President Bush not to meet with the late Yasser Arafat until his forces ended the violence against Israel.

*   In July 2001, Hagel was one of only two senators to vote against extending the original Iranian sanctions bill.

*   October 2000: Hagel was one of only four senators who refused to sign a Senate letter in support of Israel.

Eli Lake, senior national-security correspondent for Newsweek and the Daily Beast, has written,

“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. The former senator was not only a frequent no vote on sanctions against Iran, but The Washington Free Beacon reported on Thursday that he also serves on the board of directors of Deutsche Bank-which is reportedly being probed by U.S. authorities for possible violations of the very kinds of sanctions Hagel opposed when he was in Congress.”

Other figures in the pro-Israel community have expressed concern about the possibility of Hagel being nominated. An unnamed senior pro-Israel advocate said, “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 has said, “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” (Eli Lake, ‘The Hagel Haters,’ Daily Beast, December 13, 2012).

David Harris, president and CEO of the National Jewish Democratic Council – a body that normally enthuses about President Obama’s Mideast policies and record – said in 2010, when there was speculation that President Obama might nominate Hagel at that juncture for Secretary of Defense when Robert Gates was stepping down, “Clearly, Hagel has a mixed record on Israel, but that record frankly puts him at variance with the president’s own policies vis-a-vis Israel.”

Former New York City Democratic mayor and Obama supporter Ed Koch said Hagel, “would be a terrible appointment … and so do apparently most of the Jewish leaders who have expressed themselves … Such an appointment would give great comfort to the Arab world that would think that President Obama is seeking to put space between Israel and his administration … I hope he doesn’t go forward with that appointment” (Dan Halper, ‘Koch: Hagel “Would Be a Terrible Appointment,'” Weekly Standard, December 16, 2012).

Morris Amitay, a former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and treasurer of the Washington PAC, also said at that time, “I would regard him as the bottom of the class as far as Israel goes … Hagel would be in a position to reinforce the worst aspects of the administration’s current Middle East policies, which would be very dangerous for Israel.”

A further longtime Jewish political operative, who declined to speak on the record so as not to be seen prematurely criticizing the Obama administration in 2010, said, “Given [Hagel’s] long, questionable record and the clear problems his nomination would cause — not to mention the volumes of criticism by other Democrats for his rank hostility to Israel – it is hard to believe that the White House would want to make such a risky choice at precisely the time we are asking the Israeli to ‘trust us’ on Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict … I wonder how [Hagels] career-long effort to derail sanctions to stop Iran’s nuclear problem will comfort the Israelis or our Arab and European allies at this critical juncture?”

A Democratic operative who campaigned for Obama in the Jewish community also said in 2010, “If he was in fact appointed, I would find his appointment difficult to reconcile with my views of the administration” (Adam Kredo, ‘”Bottom of class” Hagel’s bid draws frosty reception,’ Washington Jewish Week, September 1, 2010).

A Republican senate aid said, “Send us Hagel and we will make sure every American knows he is an anti-Semite … Hagel has made clear he believes in the existence of a nefarious Jewish lobby that secretly controls U.S. foreign policy. This is the worst kind of anti-Semitism there is” (Danel Halper, ‘Senate Aide: ‘Send Us Hagel and We Will Make Sure Every American Knows He Is an Anti-Semite ,’ Weekly Standard, December 13, 2012).

Hagel’s anti-Israel record is such that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the leading Islamist lobby and apologist group in the U.S., said on August 28, 2006, “Potential presidential candidates for 2008, like Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Joe Biden and Newt Gingrich, were falling all over themselves to express their support for Israel. The only exception to that rule was Senator Chuck Hagel” (Shmuel Rosner, ‘The new “Obama advisor” problem: Senator Chuck Hagel, Haaretz, July 14, 2008).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “We are horrified and shocked about the prospect of Chuck Hagel serving as Secretary of Defense. As a senator, Hagel accrued one of the worst anti-Israel records of any member of Congress, as well as being a frightening apologist for the Iranian terrorist regime and the Hamas and Hizballah terrorist groups.

“Prominent supporters of Israel, both Democrat and Republican, have voiced deep concern and fear about the prospect of Hagel’s nomination – and with good reason: not only has he shown a consistent strain of outright hostility to Israel, but he opposes sanctions, let alone military action, to prevent Iran going nuclear and becoming a major strategic, if not existential threat, to both the U.S. and Israel.

“Appointing Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary would also serve to confirm the fears that many have that President Obama is no friend of Israel and is not serious about stopping Iran’s nuclear program.

“Not only is Israel’s existence threatened by an nuclear Iran – so is the U.S. Were Iran to go nuclear, it would engage in nuclear blackmail and terrorism even more extensive than at present behind a nuclear umbrella. Even if Iran never fires nuclear missiles at the U.S., who really believes Iran wouldn’t give such weapons to terrorists? And who believes that, once having such weapons, terrorists wouldn’t use them on the U.S.? And even if neither used them, what unending series of concessions and retreats would America have to undertake to ensure that this continues?

“We strongly urge President Obama not to nominate Chuck Hagel for the post of Defense Secretary. This appointment would be bad and dangerous for America and bad and dangerous for America’s closest and most loyal ally, Israel.

“We urge people to call upon their U.S. Senators (Capitol Hill switchboard: 202-224-3121) to urge President Obama not to nominate Chuck Hagel.”

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The would-be secretary of defense has some curious views.

By BRET STEPHENS. WSJ

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.

A United States senator, not an Israeli one. In case there was any doubt.
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.

Still, Mr. Hagel managed to say “I support Israel.” This is the sort of thing one often hears from people who treat Israel as the Mideast equivalent of a neighborhood drunk who, for his own good, needs to be put in the clink to sober him up.

In 2002, a year in which 457 Israelis were killed in terrorist attacks (a figure proportionately equivalent to more than 20,000 fatalities in the U.S., or seven 9/11s), Mr. Hagel weighed in with the advice that “Israel must take steps to show its commitment to peace.” This was two years after Yasser Arafat had been offered a state by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David.

In 2006, Mr. Hagel described Israel’s war against Hezbollah as “the systematic destruction of an American friend, the country and people of Lebanon.” He later refused to sign a letter calling on the European Union to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. In 2007, he voted against designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization, and also urged President Bush to open “direct, unconditional” talks with Iran to create “a historic new dynamic in U.S.-Iran relations.” In 2009, Mr. Hagel urged the Obama administration to open direct talks with Hamas.

In fairness to Mr. Hagel, all these positions emerge from his belief in the power of diplomatic engagement and talking with adversaries. The record of that kind of engagement—in 2008, Mr. Hagel and John Kerry co-authored an op-ed in this newspaper titled “It’s Time to Talk to Syria”—hasn’t been stellar, but at least it was borne of earnest motives.

Yet it’s worth noting that while Mr. Hagel is eager to engage the world’s rogues without preconditions, his attitude toward Israel tends, at best, to the paternalistic.

“The United States and Israel must understand that it is not in their long-term interests to allow themselves to become isolated in the Middle East and the world,” he said in a 2006 Senate speech. It’s a political Deep Thought worthy of Saturday Night Live’s Jack Handey. Does Mr. Hagel reckon any other nation to be quite so blind to its own supposed self-interest as Israel?

Now President Obama may nominate Mr. Hagel to take Leon Panetta’s place at the Pentagon. As a purely score-settling matter, I almost hope he does. It would confirm a point I made in a column earlier this year, which is that Mr. Obama is not a friend of Israel. Perhaps the 63% of Jewish-Americans who cast their votes for Mr. Obama last month might belatedly take notice.

Alternatively, maybe some of these voters could speak up now, before a nomination is announced, about the insult that a Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel would be. Jewish Democrats like to fancy their voice carries weight in their party. The prospect of this nomination is their chance to prove it.

Write to bstephens@wsj.com