Chris Hayes hosted a panel discussion about the Hagel nomination this morning on his weekly program Up with Chris Hayes. It’s so refreshing to have a host veer a conversation where it needs to go. With guests Glenn Greenwald, Aaron David Miller, Spencer Ackerman, Hina Shamsi and Elise Jordan.
The best clip is the 3rd in the series. Hayes opens speaking briefly, in general, about “going after a nominee before they’re a nominee,” thus putting the person in the weird position of not being able to defend himself. But directly following, Hayes talks about “a specific set of interests around the Is..[catches himself]..the relationship to Israel, try to exercise muscle to push foreign policy a certain way.” Hayes can’t specifically name the Israel lobby. We know who he means and the panel discussion that ensues is about America’s relationship with Israel and the gatekeepers. Watch:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Hayes cuts to a great clip of Hagel from 06 demanding Bush call for an immediate ceasefire during the Israel/Lebanon war. While Hagel calls for ending the “slaughter on both sides” he says what’s happening in Lebanon is “the systematic destruction of an American friend.” Ouch. Hagel says our relationship with Israel
[N]eed not and cannot be at the expense of our Arab and Muslim relationships, that is an irresponsible and false choice.
Hayes says what’s so striking is that a war which we supported automatically was a disaster for Israel and goes on to say in the “sweep of history,” it looks like Hagel was right. Hayes talks about “precisely the ability” to have daylight between our two countries, and sets the stage for his guests.
Greenwald (3:03)
[W]hen it come to Israel it’s so rare for a member of Congress to be willing to stand up and say something like that, usually these resolutions supporting Israel are unanimous, but it shows you how constricted, what a stranglehold there is on the debate over Israel. And because he’s willing to do that and has been willing to do that, that’s why he’s being so attacked and that why it’s so important to defend ..to make sure we can have this debate that we need to have about Israel and the United States.
Hayes (7:21):
[This speaks to the] amazing enduring power of Neoconservatism in Washington DC long long after it should have been definitively vanquished and discredited as a conception of the world..the masterminds behind a lot of what happened in Iraq, being the most vociferous voices in pushing to escalate in Iran.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Glenn Greenwald (4:17):
What this is about is suppressing the debate that we ought to be having over what cost there is to the American public and to the US as a government to having this constant blind loyalty to this foreign nation even when it damages US interest, Hagel is one of the military people who has raised this issue and that is why there’s this vicious attack against him.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Aaron David Miller (1:57):
What is happening and I call it in my book ….what I call the ‘Cosmic Oy Vey’. It’s the inabilty of many in the American Jewish community to look at the United States and Israeli relationship as a real living relationship drivin by political realities, by strategic realities and sometime, I know it’s a shocker, the diverging interests that sometimes separate the United States and Israel.
Good find, Annie.
Aaron David Miller’s claim that the Israel lobby is something of a non-factor outside the beltway is weird. Guess he’s never heard of Israel PACs. Even if what Miller said was true, why would it matter? Also, he reaches back decades to find examples of presidents overruling an Israel lobby initiative. Just about every one an exception that proves the rule.
Thoroughly unimpressive. But that Greenwald, on the other hand…..wow.
–grant
It was astonishing, refreshing, and goose -bump -producing to actually hear this on US media.
I thought Glenn was fabulous, in particular.
I alerted some friends to watch this historic moment– my hope is that this opens more and more dialogue, especially in view of this article in the AP yesterday:
“Israeli prime minister vows to build settlements in Jerusalem, says doesn’t care what UN says”
Thank you, Annie for getting this up so fast!
Is there a Chris Hayes fan club?….I want to join.
RE: “Defending Hagel, Hayes & Greenwald assail neocon stranglehold on policy”
● RELEVANT PETITION: Urging the Obama administration to nominate Hagel and fight for his confirmation.
TO SIGN – https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/nominate-chuck-hagel-secretary-defense-and-fight-his-nomination/P0ZtympX
● RELEVANT FACEBOOK PAGE: Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense
TO “LIKE” – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chuck-Hagel-for-Secretary-of-Defense/485366244839574
“It’s the inabilty of many in the American Jewish community to look at the United States and Israeli relationship as a real living relationship drivin by political realities, by strategic realities and sometime, I know it’s a shocker, the diverging interests that sometimes separate the United States and Israel.”
This is the ‘reality point” I have been ranting on for soooo long it wears me out to repeat it but I will.
The IDEA, the very idea itself, that anyone or group of citizens of any nation has a some kind of “right” to impose or insert their loyalities or ‘feelings” about a foreign nation into the actions and policies of another Government and demand that entire nation and it’s citizens support their favored passion for another land is sooooo wrong and soooo insane I can’t believe it even has to be explained why it’s wrong.
This is Not a democratic ‘right’ of citizens, it is a ‘perversion” of democratic rights, whether it’s called the right ‘to petition the government or lobby the government, it’s a pernicious perversion of democracy.
The danger in this “idea” is bigger than the current US Jews or Israel issue. The danger is in ‘normalizing’ and making it ‘acceptable’ for citizens to put some personal, narrow, and particularly, foreign interest above or ‘on par’ with the interest of a country. This is why every nation in the universe has laws on treason and subversion. A nation that does not put it’s own interest and it’s common good interest first does not survive as a nation, it falls apart.
To illustrate what I mean about letting this “Idea” of an individuals “Right” to force support his foreign interest onto a nation and ‘thru’ the power of that nation consider this…..
Yesterday I saw a news article on the “Cuban”-little a american, Fla. Congressman Mendez. He said, threatened that if Hagel was nominated he was going to……BLOCK every bill on everything put forth in the house….BECAUSE Hagel supports trade with Cuba.
So here we have a Cuban- American — who evidently thinks he has “the right” as a Cuban heritage citizen with feelings about his former homeland of Cuba—- to hold up the business of the house, to delay the business of the American people, to obstruct the government workings of the US—-because of his PERSONAL agenda for the foreign country of Cuba and he is telling us how he intends to use the US and his position in our government to do that despite what major or minor damage it causes the American people.
This Mendez thinks it is so ‘normal and ‘acceptable’ to have this other loyalty he openly announces this threat with no shame or subterfuge at all.
This IDEA that these personal foreign loyalties are normal and acceptable and ‘a right’ of anyone by virtue of being a citizen of this or any country will eventually ‘dissolve’ that country.
This is what is wrong with some Jews IDEA that we or the US owe them an Israel or that Israel is or should be “part of the US”, that they have some kind of right to ask for or demand our government and we all as a nation be forced into supporting their favorite foreign land.
They do not have this right, they only have the right to “individually’ support it themselves, not thru our government.
It’s this IDEA that has to die, the idea itself must be demolished. It must become as Unacceptable as it once was. If this Mendez had so brazenly done this 50 or even 30 years ago, he would have been denounced in newspaper editorials across the country, condemned by his peers in congress and the public.
So now we have some people so self assured in their ‘right” to loyalty to a foreign country that they have absolutely no shame or fear in saying, shouting out loud, that the ‘test’ for US officials is their loyalty or DEFERENCE to a foreign country.
I’m telling you this IDEA is so insane that it is going to blow the hell up or bring the US down sooner or later if e.v.e.r.y.o.n.e isn’t disabused of this insanity..