Chuck Hagel and His Enemies

Chuck Hagel does not shirk a fight. Since he was a boy, he has been impelled to stand up, no matter how difficult the situation or how high its cost. After enlisting in the Army and being posted to Germany, he elected instead to be sent to Vietnam, where he was later awarded two Purple Hearts. But in his latest battle, in the unsightly war zone that Washington has become, he has not been allowed to retaliate. His treatment has been akin to “getting jumped in an alley,” Ellen Tauscher, formerly the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control, told me. Tauscher has known Hagel well since she served on the House Armed Services Committee and Hagel served on Senate Foreign Relations. “This is not meant to be a fair fight, nor is this meant to be a serious and sober consideration of someone’s public record and their credibility. This is a knife in the back. Because you cannot defend yourself when you are not nominated. You don’t have the policy or the political machine of the White House behind you. It is a very unsavory, very terrible situation.”

From the moment Hagel’s name was leaked as a possible nominee for Secretary of Defense—in what was, apparently, a trial balloon floated by the Obama Administration—Hagel’s most vocal critics have been members of what can be called the Israel lobby. Their enmity for Hagel goes back to his two terms in the Senate. A committed supporter of Israel and, also, of a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, Hagel did not make the obeisance to the lobby that the overwhelming majority of his Congressional colleagues do. And he further violated a taboo by talking about the lobby, and its power. In his 2008 book, “The Much Too Promised Land,” Aaron Miller interviewed Hagel, whom he described as “a strong supporter of Israel and a believer in shared values.” Miller also wrote, “Of all my conversations, the one with Hagel stands apart for its honesty and clarity.” He quoted Hagel saying that Congress “is an institution that does not inherently bring out a great deal of courage.” The American Israel Public Affairs Committee comes knocking with a pro-Israel letter, Hagel continued, and “then you’ll get eighty or ninety senators on it. I don’t think I’ve ever signed one of the letters”—because, he added, they were “stupid.” Hagel also said, “The Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here,” but “I’m a United States senator. I’m not an Israeli senator.”

Hagel has now said he misspoke, and should have said “Israel lobby,” as he did in other parts of the interview with Miller. But no matter—it has made great kindling for his antagonists. The Neocon Bill Kristol’s Weekly Standard ran a story with the headline, “SENATE AIDE: ‘SEND US HAGEL AND WE WILL MAKE SURE EVERY AMERICAN KNOWS HE IS AN ANTI-SEMITE.’ ” The aide was unnamed, and the article pointed to Hagel’s statement about the “Jewish lobby” as evidence of his anti-Semitism. Jennifer Rubin, the far-right-wing columnist at the Washington Post, quoted Abraham Foxman, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, saying that Hagel’s “record relating to Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship is, at best, disturbing, and at worst, very troubling. The sentiments he’s expressed about the Jewish lobby border on anti-Semitism…” The Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens wrote that the odor of prejudice was especially “ripe” in Hagel’s reference to the “Jewish lobby.”

Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York and the chief of staff to Prime Minister Ehud Barak, wrote in Al-Monitor recently that he got to know Hagel during Hagel’s various meetings with Barak. “Barak was thoroughly impressed not only by Hagel’s military background, but by his analysis, knowledge of the Middle East, and his understanding of Israel’s security issues and predicaments,” Pinkas wrote. Hagel “is not anti-Israeli and he is not an anti-Semite. In fact, if I were him, I would lodge a complaint with the Anti-Defamation League, asking their assistance and support for being unfairly called an anti-Semite.”

The longtime Democratic Representative Gary Ackerman, a pro-Israel stalwart, told me that many in that community have been unhappy with Hagel’s desire that Israel show more flexibility to achieve peace with the Palestinians and that the U.S. negotiate with Iran on the nuclear issue—“rather than, you know ‘Let’s bomb them before the sun comes up.’  ” There is room for disagreement on these issues, he continued. But, regarding the attacks on Hagel, he said, “You know, not everybody who disagrees with Israel’s policies is anti-Semitic, otherwise half the Jewish population of Israel would be anti-Semitic!” The bar for that label should be very high, he added, or it loses its meaning—and the fact that Hagel used the phrase “Jewish lobby” certainly didn’t qualify. “The lobby, are they mostly Jews, do they advocate for the Jewish state? Yeah.” Ackerman pointed out that some who have called Hagel anti-Israel and anti-Semitic have defamed President Obama the same way. “Obama is approving more money for Israel than any President in my memory and defending Israel in the U.N. like no President ever did before—and they’re going to criticize him anyway. If he was endorsed by the RaMBaM”—Maimonides—“tomorrow, it wouldn’t help him at all with those people.”

The Israel lobby led the charge against Hagel, but there is plenty of animus for him in the broader Republican party, too. After first voting for the Iraq war, Hagel became one of its most vocal critics, working with Democrats to try to change the direction of the Bush Administration’s policy. In 2007, he and his friend Joe Biden, then the Democratic senator who was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sponsored a resolution opposing the “surge” and calling for a transition to a limited U.S. military mission in Iraq. The committee approved the resolution; Hagel was the only Republican to vote in favor. “I was called a ‘traitor,’ and I was called ‘disgusting,’ ” Hagel told me when I wrote about him in 2008. “ ‘Shut your mouth, you’re a Republican!’ Which I always found astounding—to equate war based on your politics, as a Democrat or a Republican.”

Hagel decided to leave the Senate in 2008. His wife, Lilibet, told me at that time that his life with his Republican colleagues in the Senate had become difficult. “It’s the intangibles, as you know—the way someone says hello to you, the way they might walk right past you, the way in a small group they make eye contact with everyone but you.” His position in the Republican caucus, she said, “has been a little like a skunk at a garden party.”

Upon Hagel’s retirement from the Senate, Harry Reid, the Democratic Majority Leader, said, “One would be hard pressed to find a more conservative Member than the senior Senator from Nebraska. Although our political philosophies differ, I know Chuck Hagel to be one of the bravest and most fiercely independent Members of this legislative body…I will be forever grateful for the courage Senator Hagel has shown on the Iraq war. He spoke out early against the war, he spoke out often, and he was right. As all Senators know, speaking up against a hallmark policy of one’s own party is no easy task.”

Now, especially for the neocons who championed that war, it is payback time. “These people carry long grudges,” Ellen Tauscher said. “They have lost where he has been on the winning side—on Iraq, on McCain, on Romney. And, obviously, the big sin of Chuck Hagel is to be for the President. They don’t have any credibility themselves, so they’re using the pro-Israel fig leaf as a way to gain credibility—and I just find that appalling.” Even among Senate Democrats, the attacks on Hagel as anti-Israel seem to have brought a chill; Senator Carl Levin, whom Hagel worked with in the past, gave a somewhat lukewarm statement of support, and Senator Charles Schumer (not known for his independence from the lobby) declined to say he would back Hagel, saying, “I’d have to study his record.” Only Senator Dianne Feinstein (who is known for her independence) defended Hagel, and said he would be “outstanding.” “I think he’s honest and he’s direct and he’s smart,” Feinstein said.

Hagel is a blunt-spoken, passionate internationalist who believes that it is important to talk to your enemies, and that war should be a last resort. At his confirmation hearings, should he reach them, senators can probe the views that have helped stoke the controversy: finding a solution to Iran’s nuclear program, and engaging with Hamas, and making cuts in the Pentagon budget. That would be an appropriate venue; he would finally have a chance to explain himself, and to respond to slanders. Meanwhile, Kenneth Feinberg, special master of the September 11th victims’ compensation fund, and a longtime Hagel friend, said of the attacks calling Hagel anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, “Who are these people? Whom do they speak for? Chuck Hagel is a stalwart defender of Israel, and if you don’t just fall in line with every single purist view then you are deemed to be suspect.”

Original Article
Source: new yorker
Author: Connie Bruck