An Israeli-born rabbi who claims to know Chuck Hagel well said in an
interview aired Saturday that he has never heard any anti-Israeli sentiment from
the nominee for US defense secretary, despite accusations to
the contrary.
“I have
not heard the slightest anti-Israel hint or, as has been said in the American
media, anti-Semitism”, Arieh Azriel,
who leads a congregation in Omaha, Nebraska, Hagel’s
home state, told Israeli television.
Pro-Israel lawmakers have denounced Hagel, with some commentators
accusing him of anti-Semitism for his past comments that “the Jewish lobby” intimidated members of Congress and that
he is “not an Israeli senator.”
“At all the private
meetings I had (with him), and also at events where he addressed my
congregation, there was never any sign or hint of the possibility that this man
is anti-Semitic”, said Azriel, who
said that he had known the former Republican senator since
he first ran for the Senate in 1996.
“He has
Israeli chutzpa, he says what he thinks”,
Azriel, who spoke in Hebrew, said of the famously blunt Hagel.
Facing a bruising Senate confirmation, Hagel has pledged
“total support”
for Israel.
“There is not one shred of evidence that I’m anti-Israeli, not one vote (of mine) that matters that
hurt Israel”, he told Nebraska’s Lincoln Journal Star newspaper on January 7. The Raw
Story
Hagel told the Lincoln Journal Star newspaper that he did not sign on
to largely symbolic resolutions in Congress supported by a pro-Israeli group
because they were
“counter-productive”. Hagel’s critics have also denounced him for
opposing unilateral U.S. sanctions on Iran. The former senator has also angered fellow Republicans through his
blunt criticism of the Iraq war which included calling the efforts of President
George W. Bush’s administration “beyond pitiful”. In January 2007, Hagel openly criticized President Bush's plan to
send an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq. He called it “the most dangerous
foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out”.
ARA/DB
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