[Peace-discuss] CENTCOM & Israel

[C. G. Estabrook]

[...and Petraeus as duplicitous as his CINC. --CGE]

	Petraeus emails show general scheming with journalist
	to get out pro-Israel storyline
	by Philip Weiss on July 2, 2010

Last March General David Petraeus, then head of Central Command, sought to 
undercut his own testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that was 
critical of Israel by intriguing with a rightwing writer to put out a different 
story, in emails obtained by Mondoweiss.

The emails show Petraeus encouraging Max Boot of Commentary to write a story-- 
and offering the neoconservative writer choice details about his views on the 
Holocaust:

     "Does it help if folks know that I hosted Elie Wiesel and his wife at our 
quarters last Sun night?!  And that I will be the speaker at the 65th 
anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps in mid-Apr at the 
Capitol Dome..."

Petraeus passed the emails along himself through carelessness last March. He 
pasted a Boot column from Commentary's blog into in an "FYI" email he sent to an 
activist who is highly critical of the U.S.'s special relationship with Israel. 
Some of the general's emails to Boot were attached to the bottom of the story. 
The activist, James Morris, shared the emails with me.

The tale:

Back on March 13, Mark Perry broke the explosive story that Gen. David Petraeus 
was echoing Joe Biden's view that the special relationship with Israel is 
endangering Americans. Perry said that Petraeus had sent aides to the head of 
the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the White House to tell him that the U.S.'s 
inability to stand up to Israel was hurting Americans across the Middle East. 
Perry reported that Petraeus was asking that Israel and Palestine be included 
under his Central Command (rather than under Europe, as they are now).

On March 16, neocon Max Boot, who is on the Council of Foreign Relations and 
holds militarist pro-Israel views (he's an American Jew born in Russia), sought 
to refute Perry's post at the Commentary blog:

     "I asked a military officer who is familiar with the briefing in question 
and with Petraeus’s thinking on the issue to clarify matters. He told me that 
Perry’s item was 'incorrect.'"

Boot quoted the unnamed officer at some length apologizing for Israel:

     "he did not suggest that Petraeus was mainly blaming Israel and its 
settlements for the lack of progress. They are, he said, 'one of many issues, 
among which also is the unwillingness to recognize Israel and the unwillingness 
to confront the extremists who threaten Israelis.' That’s about what I expected: 
Petraeus holds a much more realistic and nuanced view than the one attributed to 
him by terrorist groupie Mark Perry."

I suspect this unnamed officer was Petraeus himself - based on the emails. But 
we'll get to them in a minute.

That same day, Tuesday, March 16, Petraeus testified before Congress, and on 
Thursday the 18th, MJ Rosenberg at Media Matters wrote a piece celebrating 
Petraeus's realist views on Israel/Palestine. He  noted that Petraeus is spoken 
of as a Republican candidate for President and contrasted Petraeus's views to 
Sarah Palin's.

     "Speaking about the Israeli-Palestinian issue before the Senate Armed 
Services Committee on Tuesday, Petraeus said:

     "'The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present 
distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests ... 
Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed 
confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a 
perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian 
question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and 
peoples in the [region] and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the 
Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to 
mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world 
through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas...'

     "So Petraeus is telling us that American interests - and Americans in 
uniform - are threatened by the Israeli-Palestinian status quo and that Iran, 
Hizballah, and Hamas benefit from it.

     "That's pretty straightforward."

Now we get to the emails. At 2:18 p.m. the day Rosenberg's story ran, Michael 
Gfoeller, a State Department Policy Advisor who serves the Central Command, 
forwarded the story to David Petraeus, "Subject: FW: On the Middle East: It's 
Palin vs Petraeus."

Gfoeller's message was short: "Sir: FYI. Mike."

Nineteen minutes later, at 2:37, Petraeus sent the story along to Max Boot (I've 
eliminated addresses):

     From: Petraeus, David H GEN MIL USA USCENTCOM CCCC/CCCC
     To: Max Boot
     Subject: FW: On the Middle East: It's Palin vs Petraeus

     As you know, I didn't say that.  It's in a written submission for the
     record...

Petraeus meant that the comments weren't in his testimony. But they were in a 
56-page document, titled "Statement of General David H. Petraeus, U.S. Army 
Commander, US Central Command before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the 
posture of US Central Command, 16 Mar 2010."

Four minutes later, at 2:31, Boot responded to Petraeus. No need to say Sir:

     Oh brother. Luckily it's only media matters which has no credibility but
     think I will do another short item pointing people to what you actually
     said as opposed to what's in the posture statement.

Six minutes pass.

     From: Petraeus, David H GEN MIL USA USCENTCOM CCCC/CCCC
     2:37

     Thx, Max.  (Does it help if folks know that I hosted Elie Wiesel and his
     wife at our quarters last Sun night?!  And that I will be the speaker at
     the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps in
     mid-Apr at the Capitol Dome...)


2:45, Boot:

     No don't think that's relevant because you're not being accused of being
     anti-Semitic.

2:57, Petraeus:

     Roger! :-)

That's military talk. The emoticon means, I'm running for President.

Max Boot is as quick as a duck on a junebug. By 3:11 he had filed a story on the 
Commentary blog, titled, "A Lie: David Petraeus, Anti-Israel." It attacked 
"misleading commentary that continues to emerge, attributing anti-Israeli 
sentiment to Gen. David Petraeus." It dismissed the "posture statement" as a 
filing from "Petraeus's staff," even though, as M.J. Rosenberg emphasized to me, 
"That is his official statement, to be attributed to the record, and it was 
cleared."

Instead, Boot offered Petraeus's (mealymouthed) oral testimony at the hearing to 
a John McCain question, in which he said the transfer of Israel and Palestine to 
Central Command was just something staffers had discussed, he downplayed 
Israel/Palestine as a source of tension, though he allowed that he was 
encouraging the peace process because of the "effect that it has on particularly 
what I think you would term the moderate governments in our area."

Boot, who seems to want Israel to hold the occupied territories forever, concluded,

     "General Petraeus obviously doesn't see the Israeli-Arab 'peace process' as 
a top issue for his command, because he didn't even raise it in his opening 
statement. When he was pressed on it, he made a fairly anodyne statement about 
the need to encourage negotiations to help moderate Arab regimes. That's it. He 
didn't say that all settlements had to be stopped or that Israel is to blame for 
the lack of progress in negotiations. And he definitely didn't say that the 
administration should engineer a crisis in Israeli-U.S. relations in order to 
end the construction of new housing for Jews in East Jerusalem."

Enter activist James Morris.

Morris has long been a tiger on the question of whether Israel's security 
motivated the disastrous decision to invade Iraq. I met him in 2005 or so when 
he left an American Enterprise Institute function after asking Richard Perle 
about the "Clean Break" paper he wrote for Netanyahu and his own Israel agenda 
in the U.S. government. Morris runs the website "Neocon Zionist Threat to 
America" and is a regular call-in questioner on CSPAN and at public events. He 
sends emails all the time to people in authority - network correspondents and 
policymakers. He is always polite, but his emails are long and filled with 
links. Sometimes people respond to him.

On March 19, Morris sent Petraeus an email congratulating him on his views on 
Israel/Palestine. And the same day, Petraeus responded to Morris with one word, 
"FYI", and the Commentary piece by Boot.

The commanding general obviously didn't realize it, but his copy of the 
Commentary piece was pasted in above his email correspondence with the author, 
Max Boot, and Gfoeller.

On March 20, James Morris wrote back to Petraeus to try and engage some more. 
This time Petraeus sent him this note:

     "Thanks, James. Frankly, I'd like to let all this die down at this point, 
if that's possible! All best -"

Morris wrote back, "I understand, but please keep in mind (which I am sure you 
do anyway) the consequences if the Israel lobby is successful in getting US into 
another war for Israel with Iran. Also please keep in mind that your staff was 
spot on with what was conveyed in that posture report...."

James Morris first shared the exchange with me in May. My bad; I didn't read it. 
Then after the McChrystal blow-up last week, he bugged me in his subject line, 
Did you read my exchange with Petraeus, and this time I had a look.

http://mondoweiss.net/2010/07/petraeus-fed-his-pro-israel-bona-fides-to-a-neocon-writer-including-pathetic-recitation-of-meeting-wiesel.html