Don’t love Israel enough Hegel must hate America?

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The Hawks were out on the hunt last week during the Senate Committeefor Armed Services hearing over the confirmation of Nebraska Republican ChuckHagel for Secretary of Defense.  Republicans like Lindsey Graham, James Inhofe and newcomer Ted Cruz from Texas were clearly in a feedingfrenzy.  While Dems mainly stuck to safer and mundane topics, like themanaging the bureaucracy of the Department of Defense and supporting thetroop’s reentry into society, the republicans were vivaciously circling theproverbial sky eager to attack the senator’s record on Israel and Iran.           

  Here are some of the morecolorful statements and questions, the mostly republican senators made, and howmy rebuttals:
James Inhofa
“His (SenatorHagel’s) record demonstrates what I view as a lack of steadfast opposition to policiesthat diminish U.S. power and influence throughout the world as well as a recenttrend of policy reversals that….. Too often itseems he is willing to subscribe to a
worldwide view that is predicated on appeasing our adversaries
while shunning our friends.”
   I wonder if Inhofa feltthe same way when Richard Nixon went to Communist China to begin directtalk--in this time period Mao Zedong, the face of Chinese communism, hadascended to power. Initiating communication with adversarial nation-states isthe point of diplomacy.


  Regarding Hegel's sneaky attempts todiminish the U.S.'s global influence let'slook at his  record:

• Voted YES on enlarging NATO to include Eastern Europe. (May 2002)
• voted NO on limiting NATO expansion to only Poland, Hungary & Czech. (Apr 1998)
• Implement Darfur Peace Agreement with UN peacekeeping force. (Feb 2008)
• Urge Venezuela to re-open dissident radio & TV stations. (May 2007)
• Develop a strategy to protect civilians in Darfur. (Feb 2007)

   Clearly Hegel subscribes to the misguided mythologythat working with international organizations and institutions is the best wayto solve global problems. This obviously demonstrates Hegel’s incapacity tolead as Secretary of Defense.  As intense as Inhofe waswhile questioning Hegel’s commitment to  U.S.’sglobal hegemony, this was only the opening scene which made the confirmationprocess look more like the House Un-American Activities Committee rather than aconfirmation hearing for the next Secretary of Defense.
Inhofa continued in his inquisition;
He (Hegel) has advocated for direct negotiations with Iran,a regime that continues to repress its people, doggedly pursue a nuclear weaponcapability, and employ terrorist proxies, including Hamas, Hezbollah, whothreaten the security of Israel and the region.
I find it a little ironic that the same guy who wants to criticize Iran’shuman rights record. Inhofe is one of a few, senators who have voted againstthe Detainment Treatment Act of 2005, which prohibits torture and crueltreatment of detainees. Why is Inhofe only focused on Iran’shuman rights record while ignoring countries like China,and Saudi Arabia. Iran is a repressiveregime that rightfully deserves criticism but lets be honest, if Iran was Israel’stop ally in the region, Inhofe would be mute.  
Many of the other senators seam to echo the same irrational fearsof Iran:
 Senator Gillibrand from New York also had some choice words:
The Iraniangovernment has been responsible for the deaths of U.S.
Service members, an attempted attack on U.S. soil, thefunding,
training of terrorist groups.
Many of Hagel’s harsh critics linked Iran with terrorist proxiesi.e. Hezbollah and Hamas.
Hegel has been criticized   by his republican brethrensfor voting against identifying the Revolutionary Guards of Iran as a terroristorganization.
There are many points to be made about this issue. First,Hezbollah and Hamas would still be at war with Israel regardless if Iran exists. Removing Iran from the equationisn’t going to eliminate Hezbollah or Hamas from fighting Israel.The animosity that exists between these groups is not dependent on Iran.The senators, create this false narrative that Hamas and Hezbollah areterrorist organizations created by Iran.
Second, I’m glad that Senators such as James Inhofe and LindseyGraham stand up against terrorism. We need Senators who are strong andresolute. There is no excuse for terrorism, so I suppose that the senatorsstayed consistent and voted to recognize the militant Iranian organization,MEK, Mojahedin e Khalq organization, as a terrorist along with Bill Clinton in1997. The MEK is also responsible for assassination attempts on Americans aswell as attacks on Iran. 
Many Iranians believe that the MEK was also actively involved inlaunching attacks against Iran during the Iran Iraq war.Last year, the removal of the  MEK from the State Department’s list ofterrorist organizations was highlighted in the alternative press. Furthermore,it was later discovered that the same politicians who advocated for the removalof the MEK from being listed as a terrorist organization, received donationsfrom the same organization.


Its gets better. Award-winning Journalist Seymour Hersh, known forexposed the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam,discovered training camps for MEK militants in Nevada.Some sources have even speculated that the MEK might have been involved withthe assassination of several Iranian nuclear scientists and physics.
So Graham and Inhofe want to bring up terrorism by using Hamas,Hezbollah, and Revolutionary Guards as example but are conveniently silentabout the MEK?
The second issue brought up regarding Iran was nuclearweapons. This issue was brought to the attention of Hegel on several occasions.
The cloud of fear-mongering over Iran’snukes was exemplified by Virginia Senator Tim Kaine:
The Iranian nuclear threat is a much bigger one. It is veryclearthat if Iran gets nuclear weapons thatother nations will start todo the same thing, and that would cut completely counter toIknow principles that you hold, principles the Presidentholds. It’snot just on Israel’sshoulders to be worried about a nuclear Iran.
I could be wrong but I have a HUNCH these fears aremisplaced? Its hard to take the senators concernover a nuclear Iran seriously, whenmany of the senators on the panel criticized Hegel because he believes themilitary should revisit its nuclear policy.
DON’T YOU DARE TAKE OUR NUKES!
Also I’m not surprise that these senators are reluctant tocriticize Israel’snuclear stockpile. Moreover, the senators shouldn't be too concernover Iran’snuclear ambition, given the attacks on a nuclear facility in Iran last week by Israel.I wonder why these senators didn't bring it up?
What is perhaps more troubling is the failure of any senators toplace the hostility between the UnitedStates and Iran in context. The animositythat Iran has toward the UnitedStates wasnot created in a vacuum, there is a litany of Iranian grievances that havecontributed to the current diplomatic gridlock between both countries. Thesegrievances include the coup in 1953, the installation of the shah and hisbrutal regime,  the support of Iraq during the IranIraq war,  Operation PrayingMantis, and the aforementioned support of the MEK.
The revolutionaries, Ayotollahs, Mullahs, and secularists didn’twake up one morning and  Iranians did not wake up one morning and say tothemselves “Maybe we should pick a fight with the most powerful nation in theworld as well as with a tiny country who posses the largest stockpile ofnuclear weapons in the region.
To disregard these factors makes the senators look foolish andslaves to their own hawkish ideology.
What is also surprising is that Iran and Israel used to have oneof the strongest relationships in the MiddleEast. According to Bruce Riedel, senior fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, during the Reagan administration, Many Israelis officials wanted to return to the relationship theyhad with Iran in the 60s and 70s. Members of the Israeli cabinet even went asfar as to take trips to Iran to solidify what manyIsraelis thought to be its second most important relationship in the world. Oneconcrete example of Israelis attempts to make steps at improving Iranianrelationships was when Israel willinglysupplied Iran with spare parts for theirF-4 Phantom aircraft during the Iran-Iraq war.
Is it more than a coincidence that Israel decided to attack Iraq’snuclear facility, Osriaq, while it was at war with Iran?
Of course no discussion of the MiddleEast would becomplete without mentioning those menacing, and vicious Palestinians:
Senator Cruz statements:
On April 12,2002, there was a Palestinian terrorist who detonated a bomb in downtownJerusalem, killing 6 Israelis and wounding I believe about 100 others. On thatday, while you were still serving in the U.S. Senate, you gave a speech on theSenate floor. You made a couple of comments that I’d like to discuss with youand ask you a little bit about.
Cruz went on toQuote Hegel
We will continueto do so. But it should not be at the expense of the Palestinian people,innocent Palestinian people, and innocent Israelis who are paying a high price.”
I wonder if Cruzis at all concerned that in the last decade 129 Israeli children were killedcompared to 1,516 Palestinian children. That’s a 12:1 ratio Palestinians toIsraelis.
Cruz went on to wax philosophically about the moral superiority of Israel over thePalestinians.
may be indicative of a feeling on your part that there might besome moral equivalence between on the one hand Israel’s exercise of its rightto defend itself and on the other hand Palestinian terrorism. Do you believethat there is a moral equivalency between these two things?
Cruz wasn’t the only senator, who mentioned Palestinians,
 Senator Lee: is their Grievance legitimate? Senator Hagel: The Palestinians?  Senator Lee: Yes, the Palestinians who decideto strap a bomb onto themselves and detonate it or otherwise engage in acts ofterror: do they have a legitimate grievance that they’re expressing?
    By framing the issue in this context,Senator LEE, conveniently omits any culpability Israel may have in this perpetualconflict. Everyone should condemn, unequivocally, the string of suicide attacksthat killed innocent Israelis during the second intifada. The killing ofinnocent civilians does nothing to further the peace process; it alienatesPalestinians from the world community. This is also true of the rocket attackslaunched from Sinai and Gaza,into southern Israel,which have no strategic targets and are only used to harass and harm Israelicitizens.
However what Senator Lee and his cohorts seam to forget is thatthere are usually two sides to every conflict. They are not interest in dealingwith the root causes of the Palestinian Israel conflict. Instead they areplacating their right wing constituency. There are plenty of reasons why Palestinians are hesitant toaccept Israel as a partner for peace; Manyof these motivations are completely ignored by these Senators. EspeciallyInhofe, who received a -2 by the Arab American Institute, an organization thatfocuses on Arab Americans domestically and abroad, for his record on Palestineand Arabs in general.I wouldn't worry if I was Inhofe, I’m sure the AAI is some howconnected with terrorists who hate America.
The senate confirmation hearings on Hegel prove, that neo-conservatives see the world through a myopic lens, a lens that sees Israel as a custodian of righteousness and justice, on the one hand, and Iran, and Palestine terrorist entities. The failure, of these politicians to vicariously put themselves in the shoes, of a Palestinian whose family has been killed by an airstrike, or whose house has been bulldozed, by Israel: Or an Iranian veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, or a family member of one of the scientist who was assassinated because of their career choice, demonstrates the empathy deficiency that is so prevalent on capitol hill.  Until, Inhofe, Graham, Cruz and others realize that engaging with the Iranians and Palestinians diplomatically is instrumental for world peace and global stability, Israel's existence will continue to be threaten, as will United States foreign policy interest.