General Petraeus Sets The Record Straight On Israel

(make sure you turn the sound all the way up to hear this video)

As you know, the anti-Israel Left has been extremely energized by a bogus bit of pro-Arab disinformation planted in Foreign Policy by Mark Perry, an ex-adviser to Yasir Arafat who claimed that General Petraeus, commander of CENTCOM had made the implausible link between Israel building homes for Jews and endangering US troops.

As I pointed out before, this was a total fabrication by Perry, And when I pointed out that General Petraeus never said anything of the kind, I was right. All you have to do is read his actual testimony before the Senate’s Armed Services Committee

Here, General Petraeus again sets the record straight, in response to the American Spectator's Phillip Klein at an appearance at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, where he explained to reporters that his testimony had been spun by Perry and his fellow Left wing bloggers, like Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall, who wrote, “Now we have (Petraeus) saying it in his own words.”

Petraeus essentially said that Perry, Marshall and their friends were full of it, explaining in detail why “all three items...were wrong, frankly.”

“There’s a 56-page document that we submitted that has a statement in it that describes various factors that influence the strategic context in which we operate and among those we listed the Mideast peace process,” he said. “We noted in there that there was a perception at times that America sides with Israel and so forth. And I mean, that is a perception. It is there. I don’t think that’s disputable. But I think people inferred from what that said and then repeated it a couple of times and bloggers picked it up and spun it. And I think that has been unhelpful, frankly.”

To start with, Petraeus said he never requested to have the West Bank and Gaza added to his responsibilities as leader of the military’s Central Command. He said that “every year or so” commanders submit a plan that takes a geographic look at their areas of responsibility, and then there’s discussion about whether it would make sense to redraw the boundaries. For instance, he said, last time Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti were shifted to the Africa Command.

"Typically, there’s a question of should we ask to have Israel and Palestinian territories included, because what goes on there is obviously of enormous interest to the rest of the Central Command area, which is the bulk of the Arab world,” Petraeus said. However, he emphasized that it was “flat wrong” to claim he actually requested responsibility for the areas.

He also noted that there were plenty of other important factors that were mentioned in the report, including “a whole bunch of extremist organizations, some of which by the way deny Israel’s right to exist. There’s a country that has a nuclear program who denies that the Holocaust took place.”

Petraeus continued, “So we have all the factors in there, but this is just one, and it was pulled out of this 56-page document, which was not what I read to the Senate at all.”

When asked about the claim that the perception that the U.S. is too reflexively pro-Israel puts American soldiers at risk, Petraeus said, “There is no mention of lives anywhere in there. I actually reread the statement. It doesn’t say that at all.”

Petraeus also mentioned that he had been on the phone with IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, (whom Petraeus referred to as 'Gabi') to assure him that the reports in the Left wing press of what he had said were bogus. And Petraeus revealed that he had sent Ashkenazi a piece written by Max Boot of Commentary, which Petraeus referred to as “astutely” debunking this garbage.

Given how joined at the hip ( or perhaps other body parts) Josh Marshall and others of his ilk are with the Obama Administration, I have a distinct feeling that this misinformation was deliberate.

Aside from providing fuel for Israel bashers to come out of the woodwork, remember that Petraeus is enormously popular with conservatives and has been touted as a possible Republican candidate in the 2012 elections.

I'd bet my dollar to your dime that General Petraeus' remarks were intentionally blown out of context by the Obama administration to damage him with pro-Israel conservatives.

These are, after all, the same sort of self-serving scum who put out the 'Petraeus - Betray Us' ads....the ads a certain senator from Illinois who now resides in the Oval Office refused to vote to condemn in a resolution brought before the Senate floor on the matter. And that same former Senator, justlike his current Secretary of State did everything but call General Petraeus a liar to his face when General Petraeus testified before Congress.

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