Did Brzezinski suggest shooting down Israeli jets?

In a recent interview with the Daily Beast last week, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the National Security Adviser from the Carter administration and erstwhile adviser to President Barack Obama, made a highly contentious statement regarding the U.S.-Israeli alliance. When asked how the U.S. would respond to Israeli jets using Iraqi airspace in order to stage an attack on Iran, Brzezinski was quoted as saying: “We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? ... We have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a Liberty in reverse.”

“A liberty in reverse” is a reference to the controversial encounter between Israeli jets and the American vessel U.S.S. Liberty in 1967 that resulted in the sinking of the U.S. Navy ship.

Brzezinski who is said to have a reputation for such rhetoric, found his calls for “a Liberty in reverse” dimly viewed by many in Jewish leadership.

For example, Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham H Foxman, responded to Brzezinski’s quip with this: “Here is an international legal expert and he doesn't even know that the US does not control sovereignty over Iraqi airspace. Putting that aside, Zbigniew Brzezinski has always had a nasty streak when it came to Israel…. it is better that we can now see it, and it is out in the open.”

The Obama administration quickly distanced itself from any association with Brzezinski quite some time ago. Former Ambassador Dennis Ross, senior adviser on Middle East affairs to the Barack Obama campaign, told New Jersey Jewish News in October of 2008, “Brzezinski is not an adviser to the campaign… there is a lot of disinformation that is being pushed, but he is not an adviser to the campaign. Brzezinski came out and supported Obama early because of the war in Iraq. A year or so ago they talked a couple of times. That’s the extent of it, and Sen. Obama has made it clear that on other Middle Eastern issues, Brzezinski is not who he looks to. They don’t have the same views.”

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