WarSclerotic

Israel welcomed US President-elect Donald Trump’s new round of appointments to top administration positions, a source in Jerusalem said Saturday, as a former general known for his anti-Islam rhetoric and a strident opponent of the Iran nuclear deal were tapped for top defense positions.

The source specifically hailed both Rep. Mike Pompeo, the incoming CIA chief, and new national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn as supporters of Israeli policy, according to Army Radio.

Pompeo has been one of the leading critics of last year’s deal with Iran that traded sanctions relief for a nuclear rollback, aligning him with much of the centrist and right-wing pro-Israel communities. He is a reliable backer of Israel and last November had high praise for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after they met on an Israel tour.

Pompeo tweeted on Thursday: “I look forward to rolling back this disastrous deal with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.” Pompeo had warned last year that the agreement is “empowering an Iranian regime that is intent on destroying America.”

I look forward to rolling back this disastrous deal with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism. https://t.co/bifC97jWpY

— Mike Pompeo (@RepMikePompeo) November 17, 2016

The Kansas Republican backed the House vote this week for a 10-year extension on Iran sanctions, many of which are currently under presidential waiver because of the nuclear deal.

“Extending sanctions on Iran’s weapons programs is an important part of keeping Americans safe,” Pompeo said in a statement. “Re-authorizing existing prohibitions for an additional 10 years provides President-elect Trump and Congress a solid foundation from which to pursue additional action against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

During the election campaign, Trump also described the nuclear deal as “disastrous” and said it would be his “number one priority” to dismantle it.

While Pompeo has expressed saber-rattling views on how to deal with Iran, he also is the single choice Trump made Friday that attracted friendly noises from the establishment — even from Democrats.

“While we’ve had our share of strong differences, I know he’s someone who is willing to listen and engage, both key qualities in CIA Director,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. on Twitter. The Jewish lawmaker is his party’s most senior member on the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, where Pompeo also serves.

Retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn walks through the lobby at Trump Tower, Thursday, Nov. 17, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Meanwhile, Flynn — a Defense Intelligence Agency chief sacked by President Barack Obama because of his allegations that the agency was in disarray — has been one of Trump’s most incendiary surrogates.

The former general shares Trump’s disdain for nuance in criticizing militancy among Muslims. Unlike the majority of Republicans, who single out “Islamists” or “radical jihadists” or some variation thereof, Flynn emphatically targets the entire faith. In August, he spoke at an event in Dallas hosted by the anti-Islamist group Act for America, calling Islam a “cancer” and a “political ideology” that “definitely hides behind being a religion.”

“Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL,” he said in one February Tweet now making the rounds.

Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL: please forward this to others: the truth fears no questions… https://t.co/NLIfKFD9lU

— General Flynn (@GenFlynn) February 27, 2016

More troubling for Jews, in July, Flynn retweeted a tweet attached to a CNN story in which the Clinton campaign blamed the theft of emails from the Democratic National Committee on Russia.

Flynn’s comment attached to the retweet was incendiary but not untypical: “The corrupt Democratic machine will do and say anything to get #NeverHillary into power. This is a new low.”

What was shocking was that the tweeter whom Flynn was approvingly retweeting, “Saint Bibiana,” bearing an icon showing a Confederate soldier, was not just blaming Democrats: “’The USSR is to blame!’” said Saint Bibiana. “Not anymore, Jews. Not anymore.”

Flynn deleted his tweet and apologized.

A screen capture of deleted tweet by former US Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who reposted a tweet accusing Jews of leaking DNC emails.

In security briefings with Trump, Flynn reportedly has alarmed intelligence officials who have blamed cyberattacks on Russia. Flynn has been paid for a speech in Moscow and attended an official dinner with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The closeness of a national security adviser to a regime that has joined Iran in a loose military alliance with the Assad rule in Syria is sure to rattle some in Israel’s security establishment.

“The president-elect would be better served by someone with a healthy skepticism about Russian intentions,” Schiff said in a statement.

Flynn’s consulting firm has also done work for Turkish clients. Flynn said that he would divest himself of the company should he go into government service.

A number of Israeli politicians, including Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, have seized on Trump’s victory by asking him to make good on his promises to recognize the city as Israel’s undivided capital and move the embassy there, breaking with long-standing US policy to await a final status agreement. Education Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the right-wing, pro-settler Jewish Home party, said that Trump’s win was also a chance to end of any possibility of a Palestinian state.

Stephen Bannon, US president-elect Donald Trump’s controversial pick for a senior adviser post, is a “lover of Israel” who has worked hard to combat Jew-hatred in American colleges, a close associate of Bannon said Sunday.

“Not only is he not an anti-Semite — he’s a fighter against anti-Semitism,” said Aaron Klein, the Jerusalem bureau chief for the Breitbart news website, which Bannon led until recently.

Klein, in an interview Sunday with The Times of Israel, also said he was unfamiliar with the alt-right, the white nationalist movement that was emboldened and fueled by the Trump campaign, and that by many accounts encompasses anti-Semitic and other racist elements. Bannon earlier this year boasted that Breitbart is “the platform for the alt-right.”

“Stephen Bannon approached me to start Breitbart Jerusalem a year ago with the specific goal of defending Israel against the onslaught of really unfair, negative, biased reporting on Israel by most of the world’s news media,” said Klein.

Bannon, who served as the website’s executive chairman before he was tapped as senior adviser and chief strategist in the White House, has been “particularly concerned” about, and was trying to counter, the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement on American campuses, Klein said.

Aaron Klein (courtesy)

Klein, who hails from Philadelphia, graduated from Yeshiva University and has been living and working in Israel since 2005, said he has known Bannon for years and has become “close friends” with him. At Breitbart, Klein said, he worked “very closely” with Bannon and they communicated several times a day, though they have not spoken since the November 8 election.

“He has personally pushed countless stories to Breitbart Jerusalem to cover the growing tide of anti-Semitism on US college campuses,” Klein said. “This is a side of him that nobody knows.”

Bannon has been accused of anti-Semitism and bigotry, though he has denied those claims. While several Jewish groups have called on Trump to cancel his appointment, Israel’s ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, and Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel have publicly backed Bannon, as have other Jewish groups, including the Zionist Organization of America.

Bannon was expected to attend the ZOA’s annual gala dinner Sunday night, but did not show up. Hundreds of mostly Jewish protesters had gathered outside the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City, chanting “Steve Bannon has got to go” and other slogans calling on Trump to fire him.

Klein, who has authored several bestselling books and hosts a popular radio show in which he routinely attacks the Obama administration, said calling Bannon an anti-Semite was “patently absurd.” Reports that Bannon had told his ex-wife that he doesn’t want their children to go to school with Jews were “utterly untrue,” he said. “It’s pretty much grasping at straws when all they have is a disgruntled ex-wife in a contentious divorce document making a claim that he then disputed.”

Klein added: “I have known him intimately and not only do I not know of any anti-Semitic statements — I know him to be a lover of Israel and somebody who literally fights against anti-Semitism.”

Even the Anti-Defamation League, which “strongly opposes” Bannon’s appointment to the White House, acknowledged in a press release that it is “not aware of any anti-Semitic statements made by Bannon himself,” Klein pointed out.

However, the group also said that Breitbart “served as a platform for a wide range of bigotry” and that under Bannon’s stewardship, the site “has emerged as the leading source for the extreme views of a vocal minority who peddle bigotry and promote hate.” Bannon, the group added, “essentially has established himself as the chief curator for the alt-right.”

According to the ADL, the alt-right movement is a “loose network of individuals and groups that promote white identity and reject mainstream conservatism in favor of politics that embrace implicit or explicit racism, anti-Semitism and white supremacy.”

A protest sign against the appointment of white nationalist alt-right media mogul, former Breitbart News head Stephen Bannon, to be chief strategist of the White House by president-elect Donald Trump, near City Hall in Los Angeles, November 16, 2016. (AFP/DAVID MCNEW)

Before being tapped for the White House position, Bannon was said to have embraced nationalism and the idea of his website being “the platform for the alt-right,” though he denounced anti-Semitic and racist elements in the movement, which he insists are a minority.

Klein, in contrast, said he is unfamiliar with the alt-right.

“Who are they? What are they? There are multiple, conflicting reports,” he said. “We don’t have any association with the alt-right. I don’t even know who they are.”

One very detailed and largely sympathetic report about the alt-right, published by Klein’s own Breitbart website earlier this year, said that, for the intellectuals of the movement, “culture is inseparable from race.” It also said the alt-right had “coalesced around Richard Spencer,” a white supremacist leader who at a Saturday event in Washington invoked explicit Nazi imagery in celebration of Trump’s victory.

Despite his close friendship with Bannon, Klein refused to comment on his specific views and policies regarding the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying only that “he’s one of the best friends that Israel has ever had in the White House.”