Thank God Hagel didn't accuse Canada of committing war crimes or Cruz would've been really mad.

According to Sen. Ted "Calgary" Cruz (R-TX), defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel isn't just a raging anti-Semite, he's a raging anti-Semite who accused Israel of committing war crimes. Even worse, says Cruz: Hagel did it on Al Jazeera of all places. Yikes.

Cruz leveled his allegation on Thursday afternoon during Hagel's confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Cruz set up his attack by asking permission to play a video clip of Hagel on Al Jazeera in 2009. The topic of the interview from which Cruz pulled the clip was nuclear disarmament, a fact which Cruz conveniently neglected to mention. And the clip itself consisted almost entirely of a question from a viewer who had called in. Of the 78 seconds Cruz played, just 14 were of Hagel.

The clip began with a caller from London delivering a rambling dissertation about how he liked the idea of a world without nuclear weapons, but believed it couldn't happen without leadership. "I believe the current leadership around the world, there is a moral failure going on," said the caller. "For example, if you look at Palestine, there is a war crime, and they are not dealing with it. But in Sudan, there is a war crime, and they are dealing with it."

When the caller turned his attention to genocide in Sri Lanka, the anchor interrupted, hoping to avoid a full-fledged filibuster. "What is your question, then, with regards to the issue we're talking about, the reduction of nuclear weapons?" At that point, faced with getting booted from the air or wrapping up his monologue, the caller asked the most innocuous question ever: "Yes, my question is that there's a total moral failure, and unless you bring these leaders to a moral standard, nothing can be done, that's my question. What do you think about this?"

Continue reading below the fold to find out what Hagel said that led Cruz to accuse him of having trashed Israel.