The Anti-Defamation League has officially come out against Chuck Hagel, the rumored front-runner to replace Leon Panetta as secretary of defense. Abe Foxman, the group’s National Director, tells the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin:
Chuck Hagel would not be the first, second, or third choice for the American Jewish community’s friends of Israel. His record relating to Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship is, at best, disturbing, and at worst, very troubling. The sentiments he’s expressed about the Jewish lobby border on anti-Semitism in the genre of professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt and former president Jimmy Carter.
The Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens writes today about what he terms Hagel’s “Jewish problem,” and encourages Jewish Democrats to start voicing their opposition to a Hagel nomination.
Over on the homepage, I write about the challenges Hagel may face if he is tapped by the president and the likelihood that, if nominated, he’ll encounter strong opposition from his former colleagues in the Senate, where tradition indicates he will be treated with deference. In short: he’ll face vocal opposition, but to bring him down, the anti-Hagel forces must find a sitting senator behind whom opposition forces can rally.