[Peace-discuss] Ali Gharib: Elliott Abrams Owes Hagel An Apology

[Robert Naiman]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/11/elliott-abrams-owes-hagel-an-apology.html

Elliott Abrams Owes Hagel An Apology by Ali Gharib
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/ali-gharib.html>Jan
11, 2013 4:30 PM EST

In Danielle Pletka<http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/pletka_danielle>'s
blogpost all but calling Chuck Hagel an anti-Semite—which I just wrote
about<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/11/danielle-pletka-s-charge-sheet-against-hagel.html>—she
noted that, on this score, "accusations and defenses have come from serious
people." Who? Hagel's been defended and endorsed by scores of former top
U.S. officials <http://blog.livableworld.org/story/2013/1/9/12334/33270> from
the worlds of politics, diplomacy and defense; one presumes none believe
he's an anti-Semite. As for those who make the accusation: by my count,
among those of any note, there's an unnamed "top Republican Senate
aide<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/14/republican-senate-aide-calls-hagel-anti-semitic.html>
," Bret Stephens<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/18/bret-stephens-evidence-problem.html>
, Jennifer Rubin<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/01/06/the-hagel-litmus-test/>
 and Elliott Abrams<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/09/elliott-abrams-s-truth-problem.html>.
Of those, the Council on Foreign Relations'
Abrams<http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/abrams_elliott> is
the only one to have held any government posting or position of power
beyond punditry (save that courageous Senate aide who wouldn't use their
name).

In both in his National Public Radio
interview<http://www.npr.org/2013/01/07/168817789/hagel-critic-he-seems-to-have-some-kind-of-problem-with-jews>
and
in his *Weekly Standard*
piece<http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/mr-hagel-and-jews_693993.html>,
Abrams cited as his exhibit A in the case against Hagel remarks made by
Nebraska Jewish community leaders to a right-wing Jewish
newspaper<http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/12/21/nebraska-jews-recall-senator-chuck-hagel-as-unfriendly-and-unmovable-on-israel-didnt-give-a-damn-about-the-jewish-community/>.
I've already noted<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/09/elliott-abrams-s-truth-problem.html>
that
the unanimity that Abrams held up among Nebraska Jews was either a figment
of his imagination or a reflection of his utter unwillingness to look into
the subject before making damaging claims that Hagel's anti-Semitic. Now
there's evidence that those Jewish Nebraskan activists cited by the
right-wing paper don't even agree with Abrams. Recently asked by the *
Forward*'s Nathan
Guttman<http://forward.com/articles/169131/nebraska-jews-refute-hagel-anti-semitism-charge/?p=all>
if
he considered Hagel anti-Semitic, Gary Javitch said, "No." Here's the
relevant bit from Guttman:

Trouble is, Jews in Nebraska on both sides of Hagel’s confirmation fight
emphatically refute the charge. “To make such an accusation you need to be
very careful,” said Gary Javitch, an activist in Omaha, Nebraska’s biggest
city, which has a community of about 6,500 Jews. “He never demonstrated
anything like that in all the meetings I had with him.”

Javitch’s views may hold particular weight because he is no fan of Hagel. A
lay leader in several Jewish organizations, he is considered by locals to
an expert on the local Jewish political scene... Still, when asked if he
thought the claims of Hagel’s bias against Jews had any merit, he responded
flatly “No.”

In his *Standard* piece, Abrams held up the views of Nebraska Jews as his
first piece of evidence that Hagel holds bigotry some bigotry against Jews:
"Why would anyone think he was an anti-Semite?" Abrams wrote. "Here the
testimony of the Jewish community that knew him best is most useful:
Nebraskans. And the record seems unchallenged." In his interview with NPR,
Abrams again raised the attitudes of the Nebraska Jewish community as
evidence of so-called anti-Semitism:

I think if you look at statements by Hagel, and then you look at the
statements by the Nebraska Jewish community—about his unresponsiveness to
them, his dismissal of them, his hostility to them—I don't understand
really how you can reach any other conclusion that he seems to have some
kind of problem with Jews. ...There's an animus here, an animus that was
visible to the Jews of the Nebraska. And that's what the committee needs to
look into.

Notably, in both the *Standard* article and his NPR interview, Abrams cited
as his second piece of evidence a purported 1989 incident where Hagel, then
head of the the USO, sought to close a USO base in Haifa, Israel. In the
right-wing blog that initially reported the events, a single source claimed
Hagel said, "Let the Jews pay for it." The quote was not corroborated by
any other sources. Moreover, the *Atlantic*'s Steve Clemons made hash of
the post's overall
thrust<http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/01/officials-chuck-hagel-was-a-gift-from-god-for-the-israeli-uso/266863/>
by
speaking to an array of American and Israeli USO officials, one of whom—the
longtime head of the Haifa USO who Abrams ironically cited for having been
"given a prize by the U.S. Navy for her work"—said, "For me, it was an
absolute gift of God and for our volunteers when Chuck Hagel came to
Israel." Indeed, under Hagel's leadership, the Haifo USO was kept open even
as 10 other stations in the region closed.

With Guttman's reporting, it's clear that Abrams is holier than the
Pope: he's suggesting Hagel's anti-Semitic because of the way he treated
Nebraska Jews, which those Nebraska Jews, who didn't like their treatment,
don't think Hagel's anti-Semitic. NPR should make mention of just how
dubious Abrams's accusation actually is and Abrams should be challenged by
media and by his fellow scholars in the think tank world to find any member
in good standing of the Nebraska Jewish community who will say on the
record that they consider their former Senator an anti-Semite. Failing
that, Abrams should issue a public apology to Hagel for making this
scurrilous charge.


-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
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