Thomas E. Donilon, "Hezbollah Unmasked": Why Did Obama Nominate Hagel to Be Secretary of Defense?

In a guest New York Times op-ed entitled "Hezbollah Unmasked" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/opinion/hezbollah-unmasked.html?_r=0), Thomas E. Donilon, national security adviser to President Obama, writes:

"ON FEB. 5, after more than six months of investigations, the Bulgarian government announced that it believed Hezbollah was responsible for the attack last July that killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver and injured dozens more in the resort town of Burgas. This report is significant because a European Union member state, Bulgaria, explicitly pointed a finger at Hezbollah and lifted the veil on the group’s continued terrorist activities. Europe can no longer ignore the threat that this group poses to the Continent and to the world.

. . . .

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the group conducted kidnappings and airplane hijackings, two bombings in Buenos Aires, several in Paris and an attempted bombing in Bangkok. In 1996 it assisted in the Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 Americans. Thanks to this bloody record, in 1997 Hezbollah was among the first groups added to the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Over the last decade, Hezbollah has worked assiduously to obscure its terrorist pedigree and convince the world that it is interested only in politics, providing social welfare services, and defending Lebanon. But it is an illusion to speak of Hezbollah as a responsible political actor. Hezbollah remains a terrorist organization and a destabilizing force across the Middle East."

Donilon fails to mention Hezbollah's assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a friend of the United States, in 2005.

So why does Obama want Chuck Hagel as his secretary of defense? As known to all, in 2006 Hagel refused to sign a letter from the US Senate calling on the EU to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Hagel further declared, "The war against Hezbollah and Hamas will not be won on the battlefield."

As a consequence of Hagel's nomination by Obama, anti-Semitism is being freely voiced by America's "progressive" media. In case you missed it, Bill Maher declared several days ago, "Based on every statement I’ve heard out of any Republican over the past two years, the Israelis are controlling our government." The audience applauded. Democratic National Committee vice chair Donna Brazile didn't even lift an eyebrow.

Most American Jews refused to see this coming when they voted overwhelmingly for Obama's re-election. But then, Obama listened to 20 years of anti-Semitic sermons from the Reverend Wright, and this also didn't trouble them in 2008. As Ed Koch recently explained just before his death (http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/01/07/ed-koch-on-chuck-hagel-nomination-obamas-reneging-on-his-conveyed-support-for-israel-has-come-earlier-than-i-thought/), American Jews "are always very solicitous of everybody else except their own needs and community." Sad.