Israel Matzav

WaPo's Milbank, Atlantic's Wright: Hagel smeared by neocons and Zionists

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank and the Atlantic's Robert Wright will both tell you that it was the all-powerful Zionists and neocons who did in Chuck Hagel. All-powerful? In Obama's Washington? That's just about the most paranoid statement I've heard in a long time.

Here's Milbank (Hat Tip: Weasel Zippers).

The neoconservative journal, no fan of the iconoclastic former Republican senator, published a smear under the headline: “Senate aide: ‘Send us Hagel and we will make sure every American knows he is an anti-Semite.’ ” In the posting, this anonymous aide went on to accuse Hagel of “the worst kind of anti-Semitism there is.” As evidence, the article included a quotation from Hagel referring to the “Jewish lobby.”

Other right-wing publications and conservative Zionist groups inevitably joined the chorus, including a column by Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal saying Hagel’s prejudice has an “especially ripe” odor. 

And Wright: 

Over the past year, as I've written about Israel critically and gotten a milder version of the kind of blowback Hagel is getting, my view of the people generating it has changed. I used to think that all the "anti-Israel" and "anti-Semitism" charges were just cynical smears, and I still think some of them are. But I also think some of them come from people who genuinely believe that any severe critic of Israel speaks out of malice. These people are blinded by their passions, and the fact that their smears are wild and unfounded doesn't mean they're insincere.

Still, these smears have been hugely counterproductive from a truly pro-Zionist standpoint. What you're seeing now is one of the final desperate spasms of a group that has already helped destroy the thing it loves, and will probably destroy a few other things before finally, like Joseph McCarthy, destroying itself and receding mercifully into the pages of history.

Yeah, that's it. If you criticize a critic of Israel, it's just a smear. What a coincidence that the biggest adherents of  forcing Israel to live with a 'Palestinian state' designed to undermine its existence alongside it are the most vehement critics of measures to stop Iran's nuclear weapons drive.

But there's nothing to see here, so let's just move on.

Labels: anti-Semitism, Chuck Hagel, Neocons, Zionist

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:30 PM