Petraeus’s prepared statement caused uproar in pro-Israeli circles back in March, when it was published, and some on the right and the left automatically assumed he must be a private supporter of the Palestinians and that he had suddenly and bravely decided to stand up to to the Israel lobby inside the United States.
But guess what? In a gaffe which hasn’t yet attracted the same amount of press as Stanley McChrystal’s bizarre interview with Rolling Stone, Petraeus accidentally leaked an email exchange of his – with the belligerent, neoconservative, pro-Israeli columnist Max Boot – to an activist named James Morris, who then passed it onto blogger Philip Weiss:
Last March General David Petraeus, then head of Central Command, sought to undercut his own testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that was critical of Israel by intriguing with a rightwing writer to put out a different story, in emails obtained by Mondoweiss.
The emails show Petraeus encouraging Max Boot of Commentary to write a story– and offering the neoconservative writer choice details about his views on the Holocaust:
“Does it help if folks know that I hosted Elie Wiesel and his wife at our quarters last Sun night?! And that I will be the speaker at the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps in mid-Apr at the Capitol Dome…”
Petraeus passed the emails along himself through carelessness last March. He pasted a Boot column from Commentary’s blog into in an “FYI” email he sent to an activist who is highly critical of the U.S.’s special relationship with Israel. Some of the general’s emails to Boot were attached to the bottom of the story. The activist, James Morris, shared the emails with me.
You can read the full details here.
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