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Obama nominates Hagel as Defense Secretary, Brennan for CIA

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama nominated Chuck Hagel, a former Republican senator, as his next defense secretary and counterterrorism adviser John Brennan to head the CIA, urging the U.S. Senate to confirm them quickly. Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran, would replace Leon Panetta at the Pentagon.

Critics have already launched attacks over Hagel’s record on Israel and Iran. Brennan is a CIA veteran who withdrew from consideration for the spy agency’s top job in 2008 after questions were raised about his views on enhanced interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects during the Bush administration.

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My recent comments on upcoming appointments and (Neocon) criticism already circulating …

Will Obama focus on Israel-Palestinian issues?

(Jewish Journal) – Since the U.S. presidential election, there have been a number of significant developments in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. But they have not sparked any major blow-ups in U.S.-Israel relations. A top Israeli official privately told one American Jewish interlocutor who spoke with JTA that Obama’s backing of Israel during its conflict last month with Hamas in the Gaza Strip was “A-plus.”

The United States then stood with Israel and just seven other countries in opposing the Palestinians’ successful bid to enhance their status to non-member state at the United Nations. The Obama administration did, however, criticize Israel’s announcement after the U.N. vote of plans for new construction in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank.

New developments also have the potential to shake up U.S.-Israel relations. Among the potential game-changers are an empowered Hamas, a lurch to the right in Israel’s government and the prospect of top foreign policy and defense spots in a second-term Obama Cabinet going to figures who have been critical of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.

The two reported frontrunners have had their differences with Israel. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the most likely nominated as Clinton’s replacement, is a congressional critic of Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

… former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican who says he is a supporter of Israel, has often found himself at odds with pro-Israel groups. As a senator, he refused to sign on to congressional letters backed by AIPAC, calling such statements “stupid”.

Obama set to nominate Israel lobby critic for top Pentagon post

(Al-Akhbar) – Hagel, the former senator from Nebraska, is a contrarian Republican moderate and decorated Vietnam combat veteran who is likely to support a more rapid withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. Hagel broke with his party over the Iraq war, and is against imposing unilateral sanctions on Iran.

Hagel also opposes the US’s isolation of Hezbollah and Hamas, both blacklisted as terrorists in that country. Even before his nomination, Hagel’s consideration for the top Pentagon job raised concerns among some of his former Senate colleagues, who questioned his pronouncements on Iraq, Israel and the Middle East.

Chuck Hagel and liberals: what are the priorities?

(The Guardian) – Numerous reports from Friday indicate that President Obama, possibly as early as Monday, will name Chuck Hagel as his nominee to replace Leon Panetta as Defense Secretary. Many of the most right-wing GOP Senators have already categorically vowed that they will oppose the nomination of this decorated combat veteran and two-term GOP Senator from Nebraska, claiming he’s hostile to Israel, “soft” on Iran and anti-military. Hagel’s confirmation thus likely hinges on the willingness of Democrats to support it.

But before Hagel was nominated, numerous Democratic partisans and various liberals already expressed reservations or even outright opposition. Some of those, such as Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Eliot Engel, are driven (as usual) by the same mentality driving neocons: they’re worried that Hagel is a dissident when it comes to the bipartisan DC orthodoxy mandating lockstep, unquestioning support for the militarism and aggression of the Israeli government.

No surprise: Chuck Schumer refuses to stand up for Hagel

Chuck Hagel Anti-Israel Charge Is ‘Extremely Stupid,’ Nebraska Rabbi Says

WASHINGTON (Huff Post) Dec. 21, 2012 — An Israeli-born, Omaha-based rabbi who has known Chuck Hagel for many years said charges that the former Nebraska senator, and potential nominee for secretary of defense, is somehow anti-Israel or anti-Semitic are “extremely stupid.”

“I thought we were done with this,” said Aryeh Azriel, the rabbi at Temple Israel in Omaha, Neb., where Hagel has been a longtime regular presence, in an interview Friday with The Huffington Post. “I though we were done already with the [childishness] of being Jewish where everyone who says something critical about Israel needs to be labeled an anti-Semite. I find this extremely stupid, and definitely not helpful.”

Azriel, who also penned a letter published Friday in the Omaha World-Herald defending Hagel’s pro-Israel bona fides, told The Huffington Post he has known the former senator for many years, and has been “completely astonished by the attacks on his character, on his identity and his ability.”

Hagel’s pro-Israel credentials have been called into question over the past week after he emerged as a leading contender for secretary of defense. Pointing to a sparse selection of votes in which Hagel had not supported the most stringent sanction against Iran, and one instance in which he made pejorative reference to the “Jewish lobby,” critics have suggested that Hagel harbored secret anti-Israel or even anti-Jewish sentiment.  

Does Israel Lobby have veto power over Obama nominations?

(Mondoweiss) – R. Clarke Cooper of the Log Cabin Republicans, which took out a full-page ad in The New York Times opposing Hagel, has resigned. The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald had raised questions about where the Log Cabin Republican group, a pro-gay conservative organization, got the money for the ad. Greenwald questioned whether advocates for Israel or neoconservatives had paid for the New York Times ad.

And in other Hagel news, Jewish Voice for Peace has endorsed the potential pick. From an e-mail they sent out to supporters.

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