The National Jewish Democratic Council has been notably quiet on the defense secretary nomination debate so far. Now that it’s clear Chuck Hagel’s the choice, the group finally issued this quasi-endorsement today:
“President Barack Obama’s unprecedented pro-Israel credentials are unquestionable, and setting policy starts and stops with the President. While we have expressed concerns in the past, we trust that when confirmed, former Senator Chuck Hagel will follow the President’s lead of providing unrivaled support for Israel—on strategic cooperation, missile defense programs, and leading the world against Iran’s nuclear program.”
The NJDC is in an awkward position, considering Hagel’s anti-Israel history, which was adeptly summarized in an opposition research document published by one Democratic group in 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.
That Democratic group was, of course, the NJDC.
While the organization said Hagel had “a lot of questions to answer about his commitment to Israel” in 2007, it was markedly less inquisitive two years later when he was appointed to President Obama’s intelligence advisory board. According to the NJDC, the appointment was fine, as long as Hagel wasn’t helping shape policy.
“If [Hagel] was taking a policy role, we’d have real concerns,” said former NJDC head Ira Forman.
Based on the group’s half-hearted endorsement of Hagel’s defense secretary nomination, apparently not. Which proves once again that allegiance to Obama overrides any principles the NJDC claims to have. Is there any better example of why not to listen to this group the next time it tries to argue Obama is the most pro-Israel president in the history of mankind?
This–not organizations like the Emergency Committee for Israel that criticize anti-Israel Democrats–is why support for the Jewish state may tragically become a partisan issue. With one simple decision, Obama has demolished any pro-Israel credibility the NJDC may have had left. Pro-Israel Democrats who stuck their necks out for him during his reelection should take note: This is the grief you get in return.
They have evolved, all right. Google the term blackwhite+orwell if you want to see what they have evolved into.
The NJDC is simply a mouthpiece for the Obama administration with absolutely zero integrity. The term "moral bankruptcy" comes quickly to mind.
Hell, Obama could have nominated David Duke and I bet the NJDC would have put out the same press release. n nIt is now obvious that liberal Jews have decided put maximum 'daylight' between America and Israel. This is sad day for Jewish history.
I hear knee pads are sold out in D.C.. n n n n
Liberal American Jews think it is raining when Hussein Obama spits on them. And then think that they are blessed to be able to afford a good raincoat.
But any raincoat, no matter how expensive or of what quality, eventually starts to leak. n nPeople start to realize that they are wet and not comfortable….
How about Herr Hitler?
Didn't the NJDC really upset someone with a great deal of money a while back? Someone who is very strongly pro-Israel and funded Newt Gingrich because Gingrich was as well? n nI wonder if the NJDC's own research on Hagel might become publicized by someone with the means to do an effective job of it, and that the NJDC *itself* might be in some trouble. How many of its key donors would it have to loose before it was in financial trouble? How many questions would need to be raised about it amongst certain pro-Israel coalitions before the pro-Israel Democrats started distancing themselves from their own party? n nAnd taking Ms. Goodman's point of pro-Israel Democrats two steps further, many of them are in districts with a significant Jewish population, and many are Jewish themselves — could they be defeated by a non-Jew who was seen to be a far stronger & more dependable supporter of Israel? If this could happen, and if the pro-Israel Democrats realize it could happen, you may see them becoming Independents in the mold of Joe Liberman. Or defeated outright by a Republican in 2014.
Let me just ask three questions outright at the risk of inadvertently being offensive: How many of the Pro-Israel Democrats have support for Israel as a fundamental personal value and how many are supportive of Israel largely because they know that it is important to their constituency? How many place their support of Israel over their re-election hopes and how many instead are just "talking the talk" so that they will be re-elected? n nSecond, in the case of Congressional Districts where the "Jewish vote" will determine the election, at what point will the Incumbent's endorsement by community groups and organizations, along with national entities such as the NJDC (and maybe J Street), no longer be enough to ensure re-election? Possibly even cost him/her/it the election? n nI don't want to say "Jewish groups & organizations" although in a predominantly Jewish Congressional District, many/most of them will be. In the past, the incumbent has been elected/re-elected in part because of the support of such entities and their leaders — the voters, in this case Jewish voters, tend to vote for politicians who are supported by organizations that they respect and/or are affiliated with. n nAt what point will this support not be enough? At what point will Jewish voters become the stereotypical "one issue" voters, ignoring all the things which used to influence them to vote for the incumbent and instead make their decision solely on support for Israel? Iran either will or won't have a nuke by November of 2014, and if heaven forbid they do — or worse, actually used it — would *that* be enough to motivate these Jewish voters into voting only on the basis of which candidate was more supportive of Israel? n nThird, what is Joe Liberman going to be doing now that he isn't in the Senate anymore? Nationally known and quite articulate, knowledgeable of foreign policy and definitely pro-Israel from everything I have seen, he could become a quite powerful influence and I raise the two questions above in light of the possibility of he and possibly others on the national stage raising the Israel issue from the perspective of being a Pro-Israel Democrat who genuinely believes in Israel.
Good questions but if Democratic Jews in the Senate can vote for a Hagel, after Obama explicitly praises Hagel for the courage of his unpopular convictions (which are the very popular anti-Israel, anti-Pentagon, and anti-Jewish left-wing prejudices Obama yearns to implement in his heart) what more can be expected? Obama chooses the anti-Israel Hagel, he chooses the man, for his Secretary of Defense and this doesn't cause these mugs to question the assumption that Obama is the best darn tootin friend Israel ever had. Instead they react as if Hagel was some guy who just showed up on his own who can be expected to "follow the lead" of our "first Jewish President." n nIndeed he will, but it's Obama whose holding the leash. n nAnd some 65% of the American Jewish voters helped put it in his hands.
you have to wonder where Chuck Schumer will land on this.
To be fair though the NJDC is a moribund group that no one cares about or notices. They are as significant as the single Jewish seat in the Iranian parliament.
IL must DIVERSIFY her portfolio of interests. In politics there are NO FRIENDS.
Just imagine how things would be if "“President Barack Obama’s unprecedented pro-Israel credentials (were not) unquestionable."
Unquestionably. And unquestionably those creds are every bit as unquestionable as the splendor of the emperor's new duds, and for exactly the same reasons.
Someone missed the most important remainder of the NJDC post- n nAnd here's what the anti-Israel group, CAIR wrote in praise of Hagel: n•“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 …” [Council on American-Islamic Relations, 8/28/06] nPosted by NJDC Staff on March 12, 2007 at 11:59 AM
What my father said!
Obama is a Walt-Mearsheimer social Democrat – the left wing of this country, Jewish or otherwise, support him because they, too, are social democrats (they would not argue otherwise, but are rightfully open about their political preferences) and want us to become another Euro-style social democracy (particularly the taxpayer-funded National healthcare – a great idea…until you start to run out of other people's money…as Mrs. Thatcher once said…). In the process of delivering the socialist dream, Israel is being sacrificed on the altar of US State interest – of which the selling out by Al Jazeera-Gore of his cable network for a cool 500 mil (100 mil to him directly) is emblematic. Money, like power, talks, which is why you can't say "the War on Terror" anymore in this country, and why Obama chalked up the death of a US diplomat in Benghazi to a bad movie…Israel, like the USA, must, and does, stand up for it's own self interest, and will not make the same mistake the Czechs did in 1938, allowing a super-power to negotiate away its sovereignty to appease the crocodile…so please, Mr. Obama, forgive us if we do not pay too great attention to you when you criticize Israel for doing what it must to protect it's own best interest…we are only following your own great example of Statesmanship!!
.. Al Waleed Bin Talal has been a busy man: bankrolling Jamie Kirchick's "Hagel no like Gays" ad in the New York TImes and, more recently, backing Bill Kristol's oddly-titled 'Emergency Committee for Israel." fact is, the Saudi Wahhabist finks are running scared: Chuck Hagel has their number.