Hagel and his critics

"There, Chuck Hagel is accused of uttering the no-no phrase “the Jewish lobby” — supposedly a virtual confession of anti-Semitism.  The absurdity of this charge, leveled last month by editorial writer and columnist Bret Stephens, ought to be apparent to anyone who reads what Israelis themselves write. I direct Stephens and others to page 426 of Anita Shapira’s new book, “Israel: A History.” She writes that when the George H.W. Bush administration in 1992 withheld $10 billion in loan guarantees, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir “enlisted the help of the Jewish lobby in the U.S. Congress, but in vain.” Shapira is professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University...I thought the day had long passed when a skeptical attitude toward this or that Israeli policy would trigger charges of anti-Semitism. The accusation is so powerful — so freighted with images of the Holocaust — that it tends to silence all but the bravest or the most foolish."