Carl Bernstein. Photo: Wikipedia

Carl Bernstein, best known as one of the two journalists who uncovered the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, went on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Wednesday and attacked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ruling political party, Likud. During a discussion about Chuck Hagel, Bernstein addressed the opposition to his appointment that has been voiced by many in the American Jewish community as well as in Israel:

“There’s really something that’s been driving a lot of the opposition to Hagel and that is his pronouncements about Israel. It’s time, it seems to me—and I can say this perhaps because I’m Jewish—that the American Jewish community and the U.S. Congress has got to stop confusing the Likud party with Israel. The Likud party and Netanyahu are not Israel. The so-called American Jewish lobby is not Israel. Israel is a great democracy, it’s divided down the middle the same way we are, and the idea, as one of these senators from Texas said a bit ago, that the Obama administration doesn’t want to deny Iran the nuclear bomb, is absurd. It’s time to have a truth-based conversation and policy about Israel, about the Palestinians, about the division in the Islamic world, and Hagel and this team, and Kerry and Obama, can carry it forward. But it’s time to stop cow-towing to Netanyahu and the Likud party.”

Watch a video of the segment below (Bernstein’s comments start at 3:25):