The European Union may be preparing to provide weapons training to the rebels fighting Syrian president Bashar Assad, Spiegel reports. Although a statement issued by the organization last week only discussed “technical assistance,” it appears that tha the U.K. and France are ready to provide more “hands-on help,” This as the idea of arming the rebels is gaining popularity.

It should be noted that over the past two years there hasn’t seemed to exist a discernable difference in the degree of cruelty and lack of concern for human life between the two sides. It should also be noted that, by bolstering the Suni rebels, the Western powers would be sentencing the Alawites, Assad’s minority ethnic group, to mass annihilation.

In many ways, the civil war in Syria is turning out to be a war fought between proxies, in which the government forces are supported by Iran and Russia, and now the rebels are picking up the support of the West.

Vietnam revisited?

Officially, the statement released by the European Union regarding sanctions against Syria referred only to supplying rebel fighters with “non-lethal military equipment” and “technical assistance for the protection of civilians.”

But Spiegel has learned that this assistance also includes weapons training for rebel troops in their battles against soldiers loyal to Assad. The EU expects that Britain and France will deploy military consultants to support the rebels. But sources within the German government said that Berlin has no plans to send experts.

The U.S. has also announced recently that it would begin supplying non-lethal supplies to opposition forces for the first time.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Sunday that Britain did not rule out providing arms to Syrian rebels in the future.

Despite Germany’s reluctance to get involved in Syria, there are influential voices there calling for sending weapons to the Syrian opposition. Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, has spoken out in favor of arming the rebels.

“The bitter lesson of the Bosnian war is that the policy of not delivering weapons to either side neither curbs nor curtails the conflict,” he told Spiegel. “It is high time that Germany and its partners discuss supporting Syrian rebels with equipment up to and including weapons.”

Ischinger cited the need to protect the Syrian population as well as the strategic interests of Germany and the West. “All we have done so far is lay a foundation for ensuring that we have no friends in post-Assad Syria,” he said.

Ischinger was not concerned with the possibility that the arms would end up in the wrong hands. “If the West supplies arms itself, it has more chance of influencing how they are used,” he argued.

Famous last words?

More than 70,000 Syrians—most of them civilians—have been killed over the past two years. Hundreds of thousands have fled across the borders to Jordan and Turkey, and even more fleeing to shelters within Syria. The EU has so far offered some €200 million in humanitarian relief.

Last Sunday, in an interview with the British Sunday Times, Assad slammed the West for helping his enemies, objecting most strongly to Secretary of State John Kerry’s announcement that the U.S. would provide medical supplies and other non-lethal aid directly to the rebels, in addition to $60 million in assistance.

Assad said he is ready for dialogue with rebels and militants, but only if they surrender their weapons.

So that’s never.

Originally published at Rubin Reports.

In practically his first outing as secretary of state abroad, John Kerry made some remarkable statements in a meeting with young Germans.

The main thing being widely quoted is his statement, “In America, you have a right to be stupid if you want to be… And we tolerate it. We somehow make it through that. Now, I think that’s a virtue. I think that’s something worth fighting for.”

Of course, there’s a right to be stupid in America! Indeed, just this week it’s been expanded into having a right to be simultaneously stupid and secretary of defense!

To be fair, Kerry’s statement was in the context of defending, albeit not very well, freedom of speech in America. (Kerry was obviously referencing President Barack Obama’s U.N. speech in his own talking points.) How Kerry defends it is what’s scary and dysfunctional.

He was basically saying: Yeah, we know that all these dumb people who don’t agree with us are wrong but we let them talk anyway because it works out okay in the end since nobody listens to them anyway. While he used the words “virtue” and “worth fighting for” those sentiments seem to be clumped onto the end for form’s sake. Kerry certainly doesn’t say–or understand–that people have rights and government has limits. Instead, he talks as if the ruling elite tolerates such fools because it’s so nice.

That is remarkably different from a more traditional defense of American liberty like: We have seen how in a free market place of ideas the best standpoints generally triumph, people are happier, and prosperity ensues. Or, we believe that people are endowed with rights by their creator and no one can or should take them away.

Now that standpoint is really “something worth fighting for” and Americans in the institution now run by Chuck Hagel have been doing so for a couple of centuries. No American goes into battle to defend the right to be stupid.

Oh, wait! Kerry apparently does think so since, as he put it, showing his superior grasp of the English language: “You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

So, you have the right to be stupid but watch out because if you are you might end up in the armed forces fighting to defend the right to be stupid!

In contrast to a proper approach, Kerry makes the American system sound like letting the deranged walk the streets as homeless people, babbling incoherently but doing little harm. Sure, let them cling to their guns and religion while we smart people make all the decisions. He’s merely turning around a traditional left-wing critique of democracy that comes from Herbert Marcuse or Noam Chomsky, of “repressive tolerance.”

And that seems to be what Kerry and Obama really believe. Ironically, they are the modern-day equivalent of what used to be called right-wing reactionaries ruling a patriarchal society that consists of aristocrats and peasants.

Another feature of Kerry’s performance was displaying the Obama Administration propensity for apologizing. The question Kerry was answering came from a young German Muslim who merely asked him about his views on Islam. There was no criticism of the United States. It was an invitation to go into a riff about America as a great, tolerant place not to cringe and insist that outside of stupid people the United States America isn’t horribly “Islamophobic.”

Implied in Kerry’s response was the video that supposedly inspired the Benghazi attack. As you know, this claim is either discredited or, in the words of Kerry’s predecessor, supposedly doesn’t matter. On the verge of his visit to the Middle East, repeating the false notes of the new Obama era national anthem—America the Guilty—is not a good idea.

Kerry added that he’s reading a book entitled No God but God by Reza Aslan, which he gushingly praises and accepts as his source on Islam. There are, of course, many books on Islam and Kerry is free to read whatever he wants. Yet the choice of this particular one is also revealing.

Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that he was going to change Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s thinking about just how long he could hope to stay in power, Elise Labott wrote for CNN. Kerry hopes to persuade the man who murdered some 60 thousand of his own people that it’s now time to negotiate with the other side an end to the fighting.

“We need to address the question of President Assad’s calculation currently. I believe there are additional things that can be done to change his current perception,” Kerry told reporters after meeting with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh. Then he said: “I’ve got a good sense of what I think we might propose.”

For Israel, the best possible scenario—barring, of course, a return to tyrannical stability under Assad’s iron fist—is for the current civil war to continue for the foreseeable future. The IDF has been deft at containing the Syrian border, and the IAF control Syria’s and Lebanon’s skies. An unexpected benefit of the Arab Spring, it turns out, is that Israel’s security is being assured by the enormous internal conflicts that are splitting both the Egyptian and Syrian societies. A split Syria is of no help to the Hizbollah, and a rift-troubled Egypt can do very little for Hamas.

What will Kerry have to offer the man who stands to lose not just his power, but his life, and, even worse, the lives of his thousands of fellow Alawites? The Secretary of State did not elaborate, but said he planned to discuss the ideas during his first official overseas trip to Europe and the Middle east later this month.

The trip will bring Kerry to Israel ahead of President Obama’s March visit.

While the activist secretary of state Obama has picked up is spinning a web of power and intrigue to bring an end to almost two years of a welcome civil war in Syria, strangely enough, only Iran and Russia are actively bolstering the Syrian president.

The head of the Russian government arms export agency, Anatoly Isaikin, says Russia is continuing to sell weapons to Syria because there are no sanctions against such sales and its contracts are legally binding.

According to Labott, Kerry said that part of al-Assad’s calculus of staying in power centers around the financial and political support he enjoys from Russia. Kerry said he was hopeful there “may be an equation where the Russians and the United States could, in fact, find more common ground than we have yet with respect to that.”

In other words, the U.S. will have to bribe the Russians so they’ll abandon their client of four decades. That’s not very likely. Moreover, at least the way the CNN story presents things, Kerry and Obama are more likely to turn an awful situation into a major catastrophe:

Labott reports that last week, during a meeting with Canada’s foreign minister, Kerry said the United States was evaluating new options to reduce the violence.

Warning about the dangers of the “implosion” of the Syrian state with continued violence, Kerry said the Obama administration wanted to see a negotiated solution to the conflict resulting in al-Assad’s departure.

But the most likely scenario is an implosion BECAUSE of Assad’s departure, when the real massacre will begin, as the victorious Sunis will cut the throats of the hated Alawaites—who are barely Muslim.

Kerry noted comments by Syrian opposition leader Mouaz al-Khatib, who has said he was willing to talk with the regime about a political solution. What Kerry seems to be plotting here is a one-two maneuver against Assad, forcing him to “talk” which is a nicer way of saying “capitulate.”

One proposal that’s being entertained these days is for Assad and the Alawaites to abandon Damascus and move to the Alawite State.

When the French occupied Syria in 1920, they recognized the term Alaouites, or “Alawites,” and gave them autonomy. On September 2, 1920, an Alawite State was created in the coastal and mountain country of the Alawite villages. Many Alawite leaders supported the idea of a separate Alawite nation and tried to convert their autonomy into independence.

They could be getting it now. If Assad were allowed to withdraw into the Alawaite state with his remaining army, guaranteed by the U.S. and Russia, then the Sunis could have the rest of the country and peace would reign in the land.

At which point they could turn around and start attacking Israel.

President Barack Obama is planning to visit Israel, the PA and Jordan this spring, probably in March, the White House said yesterday, hinting at a new American effort to restart Israel-Palestinian peace efforts.

Israel’s Channel 10 News cited a source in Washington that said the president will visit Jerusalem on March 20th—the week just before Pesach.

Could be a plot to avoid running into protesting settlers, who would be too busy cleaning…

Obama’s trip, his first to Israel since taking office, appears to show that he intends to concentrate on Middle East politics:

“The start of the president’s second term and the formation of a new Israeli government offer the opportunity to reaffirm the deep and enduring bonds between the United States and Israel,” Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, said Tuesday, “and to discuss the way forward on a broad range of issues of mutual concern, including, of course, Iran and Syria.”

Obama’s new secretary of state, John Kerry, also plans to visit Israel in March.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office said a visit by the president would be “an important opportunity to underscore the friendship and strong partnership between Israel and the United States.”

Dennis Ross, a former Middle East adviser to Mr. Obama, told the NY Times the trip reflects “a desire to connect with the Israeli public at a time when he can go and not have high expectations about having to produce something.”

Ross added that the president “can create a new beginning with the same prime minister but with a new Israeli government.”

The Times pointed out that Obama visited Israel in 2008 as a candidate, but not during his first term, a fact that was criticized by a pro-Romney commercial saying Obama “traveled all over the Middle East but he hasn’t found time to visit our ally and friend, Israel.”

Incidentally, four sitting presidents have visited Israel: Richard M. Nixon and Jimmy Carter one time each, George W. Bush twice, and Bill Clinton four times (by the fourth time there were rumors he was checking the possibility of running for the Knesset on the Labor list).

Originally published at Rubin Reports.

During his confirmation hearings, Secretary of State-designate John Kerry was only given a tough time by one questioner, Senator Rand Paul. The exchange between them is really interesting not just because of the specific topic but also because of what it shows about basic foreign policy philosophy, and ignorance, on Kerry’s part.

It is a genuine problem. The leader of a “friendly” (?) nation has been exposed for making antisemitic remarks. The United States wants to continue aid to avoid instability in that country that would contribute to even further radicalization, and to use U.S. leverage to produce the best possible outcome.Unfortunately, Kerry subscribes–as is so fashionable today in the Obama Administration and academia–to what I’ll call the abusive relationship approach to foreign policy. If another country supports you and is good for your interests, you take it for granted and mistreat it; but if another regime–say, Turkey, Pakistan, Venezuela, Egypt, and at times in the recent past Syria and Iran come to mind–walks all over you then you chase after it all the more passionately and shower it with presents.

(For my background critique of the administration’s response to the Mursi statements, see here).

In the hands of a good realpolitik statesman, this balance would be managed well. For example, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger would have kept the Egyptian government off-balance and made it understand that Washington was doing it a favor by providing aid. In other words, leverage would be used.

But in Kerry’s hands, leverage is tossed away. He is so afraid of using power or being tough that he throws away leverage, believing there can be no risk of problems. The recipient must not be intimidated or pressed to change but shown that America is its friend and not the imperialist bully that people like Kerry and President Barack Obama see when they look back at U.S. history.

Precisely the same problem was displayed notably in two other recent cases (though readers can probably add more):

–When the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) approached the U.N. seeking membership and recognition as a state, the Bush Administration made it clear to the U.N. and allies that there would be a strong price to pay in U.S. support and donations. The P.A. backed down. With Obama opposing the same thing but not playing any trump cards, America’s “friends” almost unanimously voted against Washington’s position and it suffered a serious loss whose costs (including the permanent destruction of the “peace process”) have not yet been counted.

–When it was suggested to Kerry that U.S. aid to Pakistan be held up until it released a political prisoner, a doctor who helped America locate Usama bin Ladin and who is now in prison and reportedly has been tortured, Kerry refused.

America must be the one humiliated; the feelings of other countries cannot be hurt.

So here’s the exchange in the Senate hearing:

Rand Paul: “Do you think it’s wise to send [Egypt] F-16s and Abrams tanks?”

Kerry: “I think those [antisemitic] comments are reprehensible, and those comments set back the possibilities of working toward issues of mutual interest. They are degrading comments, unacceptable by anybody’s standard, and I think they have to appropriately be apologized for….”

Kerry, of course, isn’t answering the question. He is detaching the remarks from Muslim Brotherhood ideology and from U.S. policy. This is meaningless rhetoric on his part. It does, however, raise the intriguing problem of what Kerry would do since President Mursi isn’t going to apologize. That would have been a good question. Of course, he would do nothing.

Rand Paul [cutting Kerry off]: “If we keep sending them weapons, it’s not gonna change their behavior.”

Here is the essential question and the one that Kerry doesn’t want to answer. What reason is there to believe that the U.S. supply of arms would change the Brotherhood government’s policies? Rather than moderate its policy wouldn’t these arms merely enable the regime to follow a more radical position, and who would these arms be used against?

Kerry: “Let me finish. President Mursi has issued two statements to clarify those comments, and we had a group of senators who met with him just the other day who spent a good part of their conversation in a relatively heated discussion with him about it….”

Yes, Mursi issued two statements but they were not to take back his prior words but only to double down on them since he asserted that the statements had been taken out of context by the Zionist-controlled media. The man isn’t misspeaking. He’s just saying what he believes. Kerry and Obama refuse to recognize that he believes these things.

Lucky for them, they didn’t have to answer to Mursi’s and his colleagues’ anti-American statements. I can’t figure out why more use hasn’t been made of the strongly anti-American statements (including support for terrorist attacks on Americans and rejoicing about the alleged downfall of the United States due to Obama’s leadership) repeatedly made by Brotherhood leaders.

Kerry [continuing]: We have critical interests with Egypt. Critical interests. Egypt has thus far supported and lives by the peace agreement with Israel, and has taken steps to start to deal with the problem of security in the Sinai. Those are vital to us, and to our national interests, and to the security of Israel….”

Yes, the United States does have critical interests with Egypt. Yet how can these interests be best maintained? Remember that Kerry previously insisted that the critical interests the United States had with Syria could be best maintained by rewarding the anti-American dictatorship there of President Bashar al-Assad.

Has Egypt so far supported and lived by the peace agreement with Israel, etc.? Well, technically yes though in a real sense the Egyptian government has not yet begun to govern in its full framework. For example, parliament has not convened yet. Moreover, the government has only acted cosmetically to deal with the security problem in the Sinai, reportedly making a deal with the Salafist terrorists to leave them alone if they cooled it for a while.

What Kerry suggests, but doesn’t prove, is that U.S. interests are best maintained by not criticizing or pressuring Egypt’s government. The only alternative to Obama policy is not breaking with Egypt but using traditional diplomatic methods to get what the United States should want.

Kerry: “The fact that sometimes other countries elect someone that you don’t completely agree with doesn’t give us permission to walk away from their election….”

Wow. This is truly ignorant. Just because Egyptians—or anyone else—elected a government does not mean that U.S. policy must accept whatever that government does. Yet I think Kerry and Obama actually believe that it does mean that. Moreover, the Brotherhood didn’t just win but had U.S. backing. It was the party Obama favored. And now, of course, the regime has killed dozens of Egyptians in anti-government riots. It has also jammed through an ultimately anti-democratic constitution. The money and weapons the United States gives the Brotherhood government will help it consolidate power, buy off dissent and be able to repress the population. Is that what U.S. interests require, the consolidation of an Islamist regime in Egypt?

Rand Paul: “This has been our problem with our foreign policy for decades – Republican and Democrat. We funded bin Laden, we funded the [Afghan] Muhjahideen. We were in favor of radical jihad because they were the enemy of our enemy. We’ve done this so often. I see these weapons coming back to threaten Israel… Why not just not give weapons to Israel’s enemies [to try and prevent a potential arms race]. That might save us a lot of money and might make it safer for Israel.”

Senator Paul is not exactly right here. It is not true—in fact it is an anti-American slander—to say that the United States funded bin Ladin. It did support Afghan Islamist forces but has not backed other Islamist revolutionary groups to any serious extent in the last four decades or so. What Obama is doing is largely unprecedented.

He also missed an opportunity to point out that arms were sold to some countries precisely because they had made peace with Israel and other countries because they supported U.S. policy generally despite being very anti-Israel. Arms were not given, however, to countries led by anti-American revolutionary Islamist groups that also openly declared their support for genocide of Israel and all Jews generally.

Kerry: “Better yet, until we are at that moment, where that might be achievable, maybe it’d be better to try and make peace.”

Wow, again. This is the mentality that has repeatedly crippled U.S. Middle East policy. It goes like this:

–We want peace.

–Therefore, we should not evaluate what policies are most likely to succeed but merely those that can allow us to say that peace remains possible. For example, even if the PA rejects talks for four years, we shouldn’t criticize or pressure it because that might make peace less likely, etc.

–It might work so we can’t “give up” but we must “keep trying” even though this period is not conducive to progress and even while other U.S. policies (especially backing toward Islamists) actually makes peace even more impossible to achieve.

Two final points. First, in Kerry’s worldview, the more extremist a state becomes, the more it is necessary to propitiate it so as to avoid losing influence or the “chance for peace.”

In addition, he should be capable of making a sophisticated argument about precisely how America being tolerant of Mursi’s behavior and providing advanced weapons is going to advance American interests. The unspoken theory is that it will make the Egyptian military happy and able to overturn the regime.

But, of course, the regime will name the army’s commanders, the armed forces have shown they don’t want to get involved in politics, and at any rate many officers are pro-Brotherhood or even pro-Salafist. In other words, in Egypt (as in Pakistan by the way) there is no credible mechanism for turning financial or military aid into influence.

Kerry isn’t just wrong, he’s totally clueless. And as just about the most openly arrogant man in American public life he will never let reality penetrate through his ideological armor.

Originally published at Rubin Reports.

Were Barack Obama re-elected, I predicted two months before the Nov. 2012 presidential vote, “the coldest treatment of Israel ever by a U.S. president will follow.” Well, election’s over and that cold treatment is firmly in place. Obama has signaled in the past two months what lies ahead by:

* Choosing three senior figures – John Kerry for State, John Brennan for the CIA, and Chuck Hagelfor Defense – who range from clueless to hostile about Israel.

* Approving a huge gift of advanced weapons – 20 F-16 fighter jets and 200 M1A1 Abrams tanks – to the Islamist government in Egypt despite the fact that its president, Mohamed Morsi, has becoming increasingly despotic and calls Jews “blood-suckers, … warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs.”

* Reiterating the patronizing 35-year old tactic relied upon by anti-Israel types to condemn Israeli policies while pretending to be concerned for the country’s welfare: “Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are.”

* Ignoring evidence of Cairo importing Scud missile parts from North Korea.

* Rebuffing the 239 House members who called for closing the PLO office in Washington in response to the PLO’s drive for state-observer status at the United Nations.

Asked about Obama’s nomination of Hagel, Ed Koch, the former New York City mayor who, despite his astringent criticism of Obama nonetheless endorsed him for re-election, offered an astonishing response: “I thought that there would come a time when [Obama] would renege on … his support of Israel [but this] comes a little earlier than I thought.” Even Obama’s pro-Israel supporters expected him to turn against the Jewish state!

These anti-Israel steps raise worries because they jibe with Obama’s early anti-Zionist views. We lack specifics, but we know that he studied with, befriended, socialized, and encouraged Palestinian extremists.

For example, a picture from 1998 shows Obama listening reverentially to anti-Israel theorist Edward Said. Mr. Obama sat idly by as speakers at an event in 2003 celebrating Rashid Khalidi, a former Palestinian Liberation Organization public relations operative, accused Israel of waging a terrorist campaign against Palestinians and compared “Zionist settlers on the West Bank” to Osama bin Laden.

Ali Abunimah, an anti-Israel agitator, commended Mr. Obama in 2004 for “his call for an even-handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” code words for distancing the U.S. government from Israel. In turn, Mr. Obama praised Mr. Abunimah for his obsessively anti-Israel articles in the Chicago Tribune, urging him to “keep up the good work.”

Abunimah also reveals that, starting in 2002, Obama toned down his anti-Israel rhetoric “as he planned his move from small time Illinois politics to the national scene” and Obama made this explicit two years later, apologizing to Abunimah: “Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I’m hoping when things calm down I can be more up front.”

And Obama dutifully made the requisite policy changes, if in a cramped and reluctant manner (“I have to deal with him every day” he whined about Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu). He supported Israel in its 2008-09 and 2012 wars with Hamas. His administration called the Goldstone Report “deeply flawed” and backed Israel at the United Nations with lobbying efforts, votes, and vetoes. Armaments flowed. The Israeli exception to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty remained in place. When Ankara canceled Israeli participation in the 2009 “Anatolian Eagle” air force exercise, the U.S. government pulled out in solidarity. If Obama created crises over Israeli housing starts, he eventually allowed these to simmer down.

Recalling what Obama said privately in March 2012 to the then-Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev (“This is my last election and after my election, I have more flexibility”), there is every reason to think that, having won that re-election, things have now “calmed down” and, after a decade of caution, he can “be more up front” to advance the Palestinian cause against Israel. Returning to the present: Netanyahu’s likely re-election as Israeli prime minister this week will mean continuity of leadership in both countries. But that does not imply continuity in U.S.-Israel relations; Obama, freed from re-election constraints, can finally express his early anti-Zionist views after a decade of political positioning. Watch for a markedly worse tone from the second Obama administration toward the third Netanyahu government.

President Obama spent his first term pushing from power longstanding Arab allies in Egypt and Tunisia, seeking to engage the now blood-soaked Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, pulling his punches against Iran’s nuclear program, and putting “daylight” between his administration and Israel.

Now for his second term, he has nominated for the highest posts bearing on the Middle East three figures who give the strongest indication we can expect more of the same – John Kerry for State, Chuck Hagel for Defense and John Brennan for the CIA.

Kerry opposed Congress’s 2009 hold on appointing an ambassador to a regime that has subverted democracy in Lebanon and that has supported Hizbullah, the terror group that until 9/11 had more American blood on its hands than any other. But that shouldn’t surprise – last September, Kerry was one of only twenty-five senators who refused to urge the European Union to designate Hizbullah a terrorist organization.

A leaked cable shows that in February 2010 Kerry told the Qataris he supported Israeli withdrawal from the strategic Golan Heights, eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank. In April 2010, Kerry met with Assad and called Syria “an essential player in bringing peace and stability to the region.” The Washington Post even called Kerry a “prominent admirer” of Assad.

Kerry also stands apart from his Senate colleagues in his weakness toward Iran. Last month he was one of only twenty-six senators not to urge President Obama to reiterate his readiness to use military force against Iran if other measures fail to prevent Iran becoming a nuclear power. In April 2010, he was one of only nineteen senators refusing to call for crippling sanctions against Iran.

With respect to the Palestinian Authority, Kerry favors neither pressure nor penalties for its failure to implement its Oslo commitments to end terrorism and the incitement to hatred and murder that feeds it. In 2007, he was one of only twenty-one senators not to oppose aid to and contacts with PA figures who “do not explicitly and unequivocally recognize Israel’s right to exist, renounce terror, and accept previous agreements.”

With Defense nominee Chuck Hagel, we fare inarguably worse. In 2008 he was described by a congressional aide as “solely responsible” for blocking an Iran sanctions bill. Like Kerry, he opposed Hizbullah’s designation by the EU as a terror outfit and favors indulging the PA – for example, in December 2005 he opposed applying presidential pressure on the PA to ban terrorist groups from Palestinian elections as required under Oslo.

But Hagel has exceeded Kerry by advocating direct U.S. negotiations with Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group committed in its charter to the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews. Before retiring from the Senate, he muttered about “intimidation” by the “Jewish lobby,” unsubtly suggesting that venal legislators support Israel to America’s detriment because of malign Jewish influence rather than because of U.S. public support. And in 1998, he blamed Israel for Palestinian terrorism, saying, “Desperate men do desperate things when you take hope away. And that’s where the Palestinians are today.”

And then there’s CIA nominee John Brennan, who refers to Jerusalem as Al-Quds, the Arabic name widely used by those who do not recognize Israel. Like Kerry and Hagel, Brennan whitewashes Hizbullah and wants to appease Iran and Hamas. In 2008 he blamed the bad relations between Iran and the U.S. not on the nature of the Iranian regime and its goals but at least in large part on what he called “Iran-bashing,” which he darkly attributed to Washington’s deference to “short-term domestic political interests” – presumably the Jews who oppose Iran developing nuclear weapons.

In other words, Brennan doesn’t see the Iranian regime as a dangerous threat. In fact, he criticized the Bush administration for continuing to pressure Iran. As for Hizbullah, he sees it as moderating and pragmatic, now that it “has members of parliament, in the cabinet; there are lawyers, doctors, others who are part of the Hizbullah organization.”

If Iran and Hamas sound no warning bells for Brennan, neither does radical Islam in general. It was Brennan who in 2009 publicly defended the Obama administration’s policy of discarding basic factual terms like “radical Islam,” “Islamism,” and “jihad” in reference to the war being waged against America and its allies by Muslim extremists.

There are those who think a politician cannot be charged with anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism if the politician appoints Jews or Israelis to high positions. President Obama has just handed such people another shield to hold up against those charges.  Bloomberg and other news sites are reporting that tomorrow, January 10, Obama will nominate his Orthodox current chief of staff, Jack Lew, to head the Treasury Department.  Lew would replace the out-going Timothy Geithner.

Staunchly pro-Israel and pro-American leaders and organizations have harshly criticized the president’s most recent nominations for three of the most significant positions in the U.S. government. Claims against all three have centered on their documented inclinations towards conciliation and negotiation with the most intractable Islamist and repressive governments, including Iran and Syria, and terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, while at the same time exhibiting a decided frigidity towards the Jewish State.  Those claims have been leveled against Senator John Kerry (R-MA) for Secretary of State, Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NB) for Secretary of Defense, and John Brennan for Director of the CIA, all of whom have encountered fierce resistance in certain sections of the staunchly pro-Israel community.

It is unlikely that Lew’s nomination will be met with hostility by the pro-Israel crowd, but that is not because he is an Orthodox Jew who strives to maintain his Shomer Shabbat life despite his demanding position.  Rather, a cursory review of Lew’s professional and academic background reveals a candidate who appears eminently qualified for what is a non-foreign policy position.

Lew was born and raised in Queens, New York, received degrees from Harvard College and Georgetown Law School, and spent most of his career in the public sector, including two stints heading the Office of Management and Budget, and serving as an aide to the late Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill (D-MA). His private sector positions have included managing director for Citigroup and as an executive vice president of New York University.

In his role as right hand man to the president, the Orthodox Lew was useful in using that hand to reach out to, and smooth down the feathers of, those mainstream American Jewish organizations and leaders for whom such outreach is meaningful. It was widely reported that Lew assisted Obama in making calls to the heads of such organizations, in trying to derail “Jewish” criticism of the Hagel nomination.

While Lew is unlikely to face hectoring from pro-Israel forces, what he will face as Treasury Secretary is more than sufficiently harrowing.  It will be his job to try and tame the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling.  That limit was reached on December 31, at which point the Treasury Department began using “extraordinary measures” to keep the government operating.  But those measures will be exhausted within the next few weeks, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

As the president’s chief of staff, Lew was already used as the president’s kosher imprimatur, but the Treasury Secretary is a higher profile position and one that sets policy, whereas chief of staff ostensibly controls access to the president, but is not an independent policy-making position.

An in-depth article about Lew which ran in November’s National Journal, reveals a man who very much shares this president’s views of government and spending priorities.

If Lew became Treasury secretary, members of the business sector and political observers say, it would send two messages from the administration to Wall Street and the financial community. First, that they don’t have an ally or one of their own in Washington. Second, that the White House intends to keep close watch over tax policy and international financial decisions.

The choice would make the Treasury job  an extension of the White House’s economic team.  “And [appointing] Jack Lew suggests that [Obama] is going to continue to be the principal economic spokesperson because Jack Lew is not Mr. Outside. He’s Mr. Inside,” says Rothkopf, the former Clinton official.

And in the most recent fiscal cliff negotiations, Lew was seen by some as being particularly obstructionist.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was reportedly irked by Lew’s intransigence.

Still, Treasury is hardly a position like Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense from which decisions that have an existential impact on Israel will be made.  Domestic spending issues are more frequently the focus of centrist Jewish organizations which tend to be dominated by Democrats, for whom a fiscal conservative might be a lightening rod.  Lew is unlikely to raise the ire of non-partisan pro-Israel organizations.

Of course, if Lew is moving to Treasury, who will be the president’s next chief of staff?  So far the names being floated include Denis McDonough, currently a deputy national security adviser, and Ron Klain, who had served as Vice President Joe Biden’s chief of staff.

If Lew’s replacement is Denis McDonough, sparks may yet fly.  McDonough has been fingered as one of the people most likely to have altered the famous CIA talking points on the attacks on Benghazi. The alteration of those points, it has been claimed, led the Obama administration to publicly blame the murderous violence on a crude little video which Muslims deemed insulting to their prophet, rather than immediately acknowledging that it was a planned attack by an al Qaeda affiliate against the United States on the anniversary of 9/11.  It is hard to believe the White House would want to bring the focus back on Benghazi, although most news sites which have mentioned McDonough as one of Lew’s likely successors did not even make the connection.