Why Israel was Chuck Hagel's biggest fan

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Pop quiz: aside from Chuck Hagel himself, who is most mourning the Defense Secretary's just-announced departure from the Obama administration? This week's reporting suggests a somewhat surprising answer: Israel, a country that seemed to oppose Hagel when he was first nominated just two years ago. In an effusive statement, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon called Hagel a "true friend of Israel" whose "dedication to ensuring Israel's security has been unwavering."
On the surface, this would seem to make little sense. US-Israel relations are currently on the rocks: just this October, Ya'alon was denied permission to meet with Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden during a Washington visit, punishment for having repeatedly trashed Kerry's Israel-Palestine diplomacy. What's more, Hagel gained a bit of a rep as a critic of Israel during his time as a Senator. After Hagel was nominated for Defense Secretary, former Bush official Elliott Abrams labelled him a flat-out anti-Semite, part of a larger wave of accusations from the pro-Israel right. So how did Hagel end up becoming one of the Israeli government's favorite Americans?

Despite all of the political controversies, the truth is that the US and Israeli militaries cooperate very closely. Supervising that cooperation was Hagel's job, and put him and his Israeli counterparts on the same page. And that's why the so-called crisis in US-Israel relations is only skin-deep: the US-Israel alliance is sustained by forces well beyond the control of any one American president or Israeli prime minister.