I suppose I could be flattered that William Kristol is
trying to use my endorsement to derail Senator Chuck Hagel's candidacy to be
the next secretary of defense. But in fact I'm disgusted, because Kristol's
predictable hatchet job depends on the false charge that my co-author John
Mearsheimer and I are "Israel-haters." It is, to be blunt, a shameful lie. It is
also a revealing glimpse into how Kristol thinks and operates.
Here's Kristol's problem: Hagel is a decorated Vietnam veteran who was
wounded twice in the service of his country. Instead of helping cause
wars from the sidelines like Bill does, Hagel fought with bravery on the
battlefield. He's also a Republican with ample experience in national security
and intelligence matters whose judgment President Obama respects. Hagel has been
quite supportive of Israel throughout his public career, and his views on
many Middle East topics are similar to those of prominent Israeli officials. But
he hasn't been as slavishly devoted to Israel as fanatics like Kristol would
like, and he's skeptical about the merits of a war with Iran (as are many
Israeli experts). Hagel also
said openly he "was a United States senator, not an Israeli senator," and
that his primary responsibility is to serve the American national
interest, not Israel's. This statement would disqualify him were he in the
running to be Israel's minister of defense, but it is precisely what
you'd expect a loyal American to say.
Well, if you're Bill Kristol and you can't find any legitimate grounds to
oppose Hagel, what do you do? You smear him. You try to convince people
that Hagel's perfectly sensible views are really a manifestation of some sort of
hidden anti-Semitism. Since Hagel has never done or said anything to support
such a vicious charge, you have to use the well-known McCarthyite tactic of
guilt-by-association. How? Point out that yours truly blogged that his
nomination would be a "smart move."
See how it works? Someone who has previously been falsely smeared as
anti-Israel thinks Hagel would be a good choice, so Hagel must be a nasty piece
of work too. Of course, the charges against me are equally baseless -- and I'll
bet Kristol knows that quite well -- but factual accuracy is not his concern.
The sad fact is that if someone displays the slightest degree of independent
thought on the subject of U.S.-Israel relations, they'll get falsely smeared.
And then if that person says anything favorable about anyone else, that
statement will be used to smear the others too. The goal, of course, is to
silence or marginalize anyone who doesn't fully support the current "special
relationship" and prevent a full and open debate about its merits.
President Obama hasn't shown a lot of backbone on this issue in the past, and
it's possible that Kristol and the other hardliners who are now spewing
falsehoods about Hagel will get the White House to blink. It's also possible
that Obama will prefer a less traditional defense and foreign policy team and
will opt for somebody else for that reason. The rumors about Hagel may even have
been a clever White House ploy to provoke Kristol and the other neocons into
their usual frenzy, thereby exposing their monomania about Israel once again and
discrediting future efforts to oppose a more sensible U.S. policy in the
region.
But what this incident really reveals is how desperate Kristol & Co. are
becoming. Having conceived, cheer-led, and then bungled the disastrous Iraq war,
their credentials as foreign policy "experts" are forever tarnished. They've
used the "anti-Semitism/Israel-hater" charge so often and so inaccurately that
it is losing its power to silence or deter, and defending the "special
relationship" will be more and more difficult as Israel drifts rightward and
hopes for a two-state solution fade into oblivion.
These trends will force Kristol and those who share his views to use even
more despicable tactics to defend an untenable status quo. So I wouldn't expect
them to abandon the art of the smear anytime soon. At this point, what else have
they got?
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/12/17/the_art_of_the_smear
Wednesday 19 December 2012
The art of the smear
Posted @ 04:15
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