Israel Media Unfazed by Obama's Pentagon Nominee

Israeli commentators played down the impact on relations with the United States of Monday's nomination as Pentagon chief of Republican former senator Chuck Hagel, criticized by heavyweights in his own party for being anti-Israel.

"Barack Obama did not choose Chuck Hagel because of his views on Israel and the president will not base his Israel policy on the views of Chuck Hagel", said the commentator of Israel's Channel Two television.

"On the contrary, as the president underlined, he will remain the commander in chief of foreign policy," the commentator said, adding that he did not expect U.S. military aid to Israel of more than $3 billion dollars a year to be affected if Hagel's appointment was confirmed by the Senate.

The commentator of Channel 10, also privately owned, said Obama had nominated the Republican primarily to help push through major spending cuts within the U.S. military.

He said the one person who might struggle with Hagel as defense secretary was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had bad personal relations with him. Hagel "is not an enemy of Israel but an enemy of Netanyahu," he said.

Rightwing pro-Netanyahu freesheet Israel Hayom said in a editorial before the nomination that his appointment would be "problematic".

"Hagel believes that Israeli-Palestinian conflict destabilizes the middle East. Let's hope there are people in the Pentagon who remind him from time to time of the existence of Iran," it said.

Pro-opposition daily Haaretz countered that Hagel's positions on the peace process were "shared by a large number of Israelis on the center and left of the political spectrum."

Despite the fact that he is a fellow Republican, heavyweights in his party have accused him of hostility toward Israel and naivety on Iran.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, pointing to Hagel's calls for direct U.S. negotiations with Iran and for Israel to negotiate with Hamas, said he would be "the most antagonistic defense secretary towards the state of Israel in our nation's history."

Another Republican senator, John Cornyn of Texas, said he would oppose the nomination, charging it would be the "worst possible message we could send to our friend Israel and the rest of our allies in the Middle East."

Hagel himself pledged on Monday to give his "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 The Lincoln Journal Star newspaper in his home state of Nebraska.