The nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense has sparked a firestorm of opposition from Israel’s fifth column in the United States.  It is a useful example of just how the Jewish state’s parasitic relationship with America works.

Israel cannot stand alone: She is a European colony in the midst of an Arab sea and cannot sustain herself, either economically or militarily, without massive infusions of money and arms from her Western sponsors.  Furthermore, Israel’s demographic doom is sealed unless authorities can somehow persuade Jews living elsewhere to make aliyah.  Failing that, the Israelis will be outnumbered in their own country, as Arabs are reproducing at a far-higher rate.

Their solution to this demographic dilemma is to annex the West Bank, ethnically cleanse it of non-Jews, and create a Greater Israel that stretches from the Jordan to the sea.  Pace Oslo, that is the course the current Israeli government is on.

In order to accomplish this task, the Israelis need to block their American allies from interfering, and this means pulling out all the stops.  Firmly ensconced in both parties, and in the permanent national-security bureaucracy, our Israel Firsters are working assiduously to clear Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s road to realize the Zionist dream of an Israel with no Arabs.

Their first task is to ensure that the flow of money and arms continues uninterrupted.  Their second is to make sure those in high office—particularly in President Obama’s Cabinet—put Israel’s interests above all others.  Yet Israeli and U.S. interests have been diverging since the end of the Cold War, and particularly since September 11, 2001, when the need to bolster Arab support for the United States began to preempt the old anti-Soviet U.S.-Israeli “special relationship.”  In cold, hard geopolitical terms, U.S. and Israeli interests aren’t just out of sync in the Middle East; they are opposed.

Chuck Hagel is a decorated war veteran, earning two Purple Hearts in Vietnam, a war for which he volunteered.  He would be the first enlisted man to be considered for defense secretary.  The scars he took away from Southeast Asia burned skepticism of foreign wars into his soul, and years later, when he became a U.S. senator, he brought that skepticism to Washington, becoming one of the first high-profile public officials to call out the neocons on their dirty war in Iraq.

The neocons neither forgive nor forget, and now that Hagel has been nominated, they are ready for payback.  Because he dared talk about the “Jewish Lobby” (when he presumably should have said “Israel Lobby”), charges of—surprise!—“antisemitism” are being bruited about by the Usual Suspects.  He’s supposedly “soft on Iran” because he doesn’t want to start bombing Tehran tomorrow.  Tellingly, one of the main lines of attack on Hagel has been an incident in which he was asked at a New York City forum why he’s so skeptical of starting a war with Iran: After all, doesn’t he care about Israel?  Hagel’s answer: “I’m an American Senator, not an Israeli Senator.”  Such a statement is, of course, nothing close to antisemitism—unless American patriotism is held to be inherently antisemitic when it comes up against the relentless pursuit of Israeli interests.

Like the Israelis themselves, who seem to be going over the cliff of ethno-nationalism, the Israel Lobby is becoming more brazen—and isolated—by the day.  Something calling itself the Emergency Committee for Israel, run by Bill Kristol and financed by hedge-fund honcho Daniel S. Loeb, has been running television ads saying “Hagel is not an option.”  Why isn’t he an option?  Because he thinks going to war with Iran (for Israel’s sake) isn’t “feasible, viable, or responsible.”

Which underscores the total ineffectiveness of the Lobby’s efforts: After all, Hagel’s opposition to another crazy war in the Middle East reflects the views of the overwhelming majority of Americans.  Of course, the Israel Firsters—who, according to accused Israeli spy Steve Rosen, are like “a night flower that blooms in the dark”—could care less about what the people think.  They are focused on the policymakers in Washington, the only market in which the ad was run.

What’s encouraging, no matter what happens to Hagel at the confirmation hearings, is that there has been a huge pushback against the Lobby’s smear campaign.  Public officials, prominent pundits, and just plain ordinary people have come out in support of Hagel, in spite of the tremendously noisy Two Minutes Hate campaign launched by the Lobby.  The tables have been turned.  Instead of putting Hagel on trial, the Israel Lobby is now in the dock.

By overplaying their hand, the fifth column in our midst has invited close scrutiny—and that is the one thing they cannot survive.  Just ask Steve Rosen.