WALTERS: The Obama administration does not want Israel to build any more settlements on what they consider Palestinian territory. What is your view on this?

PALIN: I disagree with the Obama administration on that. I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.

WALTERS: Even if it’s [in] Palestinian areas?

PALIN: I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expand.

Not only does Palin disagree with the Obama administration on that, she also disagrees with the Bush administration, whose 2002 “roadmap for peace” called for a settlement freeze. In fact, every U.S. administration since Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began in 1967 has opposed Israel’s building of settlements, which are held to be illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention:

Article 49. The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

In addition to violating Israel’s obligations under international law, the settlements are a major source of anger and frustration for Palestinians, and one of the main drivers of extremism and violence among both Palestinians and Israelis. By further entrenching Israel within the Palestinian territories, the settlements also make a two-state solution — which both Presidents Bush and Obama have recognized as a central U.S. national security interest — far more difficult to achieve.

Palin’s wild views on Jewish settlements might help her steal some radical right-wing religious support from Mike Huckabee, but they have disastrous implications both for U.S. and Israeli security, as well as for Palestinian national and human rights.

I have been focused on this issue, and I am not one who is enthusiastic about adding U.S. troops. I don’t think that is going to fix the problem. I think what’s going to fix the problem is a massive effort by us, when we have leverage, which is right now, to fix the corruption problem in the government. It’s the corruption, stupid. If we just let Karzai operate going forward with a system of cronies I think that is a guarantee that the population of Afghanistan won’t support its own government and will move increasingly to the Taliban. So, that’s against our interest. So, we ought to eliminate the corruption there and set up a system where Afghans want to fight for their own country over time.

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Mr. Obama was right when he said last year that “You don’t muddle through the central front on terror . . . You don’t muddle through stamping out the Taliban.”

Asked about Afghanistan back in Nov. 2003, McCain stressed that Iraq was the more important effort, but that he thought that we would be able to “muddle through”:

MCCAIN: I am concerned about it, but I’m not as concerned as I am about Iraq today — obviously, or I’d be talking about Afghanistan — but I believe that if Karzai can make the progress that he is making, that in the long term we may muddle through in Afghanistan.

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None of the three hawkish senators, all of whom shilled relentlessly for the invasion of Iraq, have ever owned up to the now widely-accepted fact that the diversion of troops and resources and attention away from Afghanistan toward Iraq was the critical factor in the resurrection of the Taliban insurgency. Read more at the Wonk Room.

At the time, National Review’s Andrew McCarthy criticized the editors of his own magazine for their admission that the “death panels” controversy was hysteria based on a lie:

The editorial’s contention was that there wouldn’t “literally” be death panels. To me, that’s not much different from quibbling over “what the meaning of ‘is’ is.” The stakes here couldn’t be higher, time is short, and “death panel” cuts to the chase.

Indeed, the cover of the current issue of National Review promotes the “death panel” hysteria. And, McCarthy now believes that his defense of “death panels” hysteria has been vindicated by National Review’s choice of cover art. McCarthy writes that the cover “made me wonder why we were arguing so much a couple of weeks ago.”

McCarthy actually has a point. It’s disingenuous, to say the least, for National Review to admit in print that “death panels” are a lie, while at the same time trying to sell magazines with art that promotes the same lie.

Speaking to a small group of foreign reporters in Jerusalem, Huckabee, seen as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012, said the international community should consider establishing a Palestinian state some place else.

“The question is should the Palestinians have a place to call their own? Yes, I have no problem with that. Should it be in the middle of the Jewish homeland? That’s what I think has to be honestly assessed as virtually unrealistic.”

This isn’t the first time Huckabee has come out against a two-state solution and endorsed the idea of Palestinian population transfer. In August 2008, Huckabee said, “The two-state solution is no solution, but will cause only problems,” insisting that “the Palestinians can create their homeland in many other places in the Middle East, outside Israel.” Ironically, the Jerusalem Post reported that Huckabee “did not want to impose his views on the situation or to Americanize it.”

Huckabee’s current visit is being sponsored by the American Friends of Ateret Cohanim, a non-profit organization “that sends millions of shekels worth of donations to Israel every year for clearly political purposes, such as buying Arab properties in East Jerusalem.” Israel’s Haaretz reported that the group “is registered in the United States as an organization that funds educational institutes in Israel,” but that its financing of settlements in East Jerusalem would “seem to violate the organization’s tax-exempt status.”

Yesterday, Huckabee attended a reception at the Shepherd Hotel in East Jerusalem, which “became the focus of American-Israeli tensions last month.” The Obama administration has objected to Israeli plans for construction of a new Jewish settlement at the hotel, which is “located in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood.”

New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind said Huckabee will air the talkshow during a solidarity visit to the site of the project, which is in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

Hikind, who is active in right-wing Jewish causes, told Haaretz that dozens of U.S. activists will participate in the mission, in order to express their support for the project and the man behind it, Irving Moskowitz.

Hikind is a former follower of Meir Kahane, a Jewish extremist who was assassinated in 1990. Two Kahanist organizations, Kach and Kahane Chai, are on the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

Irving Moskowitz is a Florida-based gambling magnate who funds right-wing pro-Israel organizations in the United States and radical Israeli settler groups and settlement projects in the occupied territories, like the one in Sheikh Jarrah. Moskowitz is also a longtime funder of conservative think tanks like the Hudson Institute, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and the Center for Security Policy (CSP).

Huckabee has been an outspoken supporter of Israeli settlements — and opponent of a two-state solution. Last July, Huckabee told World Net Daily that “the two-state solution is no solution, but will cause only problems. … The Palestinians can create their homeland in many other places in the Middle East, outside Israel.”

Asked by host David Gregory what he thought of Palin quitting her job as Governor of Alaska, McCain said, “I don’t think she quit,” adding “I don’t know there was a quote, promise” that she made to the voters of Alaska. Gregory pressed:

GREGORY: Senator McCain, you have faced personal torture, personal attacks, political attacks, investigations. You have never resigned from anything. Is it consistent with your qualities of leadership to resign an elected post like this?

McCAIN: Sure.

GREGORY: It is consistent?

McCain said, “I know she’s qualified. … No doubt about it.” He added, “I’m confident she would make a fine president.” Gregory concluded by asking, “Knowing everything you know now, would you pick her again?” McCain unhesitatingly responded, “Absolutely.” Watch it:

Bloomfield obtained a copy of TIP’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary, “a manual on how to talk to journalists and opinion molders about the Arab-Israeli conflict.” The manual states:

“The single toughest issue” to defend among Americans generally and American Jews in particular is settlements, says the manual, and “hostility towards them and towards Israeli policy that appears to encourage settlement activity.” [...]

Similarly, TIP says the “best argument” for settlements is this: Since Arabs citizens of Israel “enjoy equal rights,” telling Jews they can’t live in the Palestinian state “is a racist idea.”

As Bloomfield notes, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said recently that Jews who choose to live in the new state of Palestine “will not enjoy any less rights than Israeli Arabs enjoy now in the state of Israel.”

Last Thursday, TIP organized a press call with Israeli spokesman Mark Regev, who defended continued building in Israel settlements. Given the numerous Israeli administrative and security measures that function to divest Palestinians of their property and put it into the hands of Israeli settlers, TIP’s use of the term “ethnic cleansing” is patently ridiculous.

MCCAIN: It really is a sham that they’ve pulled off, and I hope that we will act. [...]

CARLSON: How will the Obama administration react to this? Will they come out directly and say that this is unconscionable, that this can go on when they claim to be a democracy, or will they take an easier tact [sic] on it?

MCCAIN: Well, initial reports by, quote, administration officials, are that they say that they’re not going to change their policy of dialogue, et cetera, et cetera. I think they should be condemned, and it’s obvious that this was a rigged election and depriving the people of their democratic rights. We are for human rights all over the world.

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As with McCain’s impetuous response to the Georgia crisis last summer, his first reaction to the events in Iran is condemnation and a call to “act.” By contrast, the Obama administration seems to understand that knowing when not to act is just as strategically important as knowing when to do so, and that the most productive thing the United States can do for Iran’s reform movement — and human rights — at the moment is to keep itself, to the extent possible, out of the equation.

On a positive note, Faith In Public Life notes that Rev. Joseph Lowery, a civil rights icon and supporter of same-sex marriage, is giving the benediction at the end of the event.

“I stand up for what I believe. I don’t back off. I’ve been that way for 40 years. That’s the secret to my success. I have thick skin. I don’t care what people say about me,” he said.

“I defend the United States, Israel and the Constitution.”

No word on whether Ailes listed those in order of priority.

With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr. Sarkozy told Mr. Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia’s Government. According to [Sarkozy’s chief diplomatic adviser, Jean-David] Levitte, the Russian seemed unconcerned by international reaction. “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls,” Mr. Putin declared.

Mr. Sarkozy thought he had misheard. “Hang him?” — he asked. “Why not?” Mr. Putin replied. “The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.”

Mr. Sarkozy, using the familiar tu, tried to reason with him: “Yes but do you want to end up like [President] Bush?” Mr. Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: “Ah — you have scored a point there.”

Fear of “ending up like Bush” now functions as a deterrent.

Currently a senior writer at The Weekly Standard, Hayes will appear on the full line-up of CNN programming as part of the network’s ideologically diverse group of analysts and contributors. Hayes has a long history of reporting on the political world. [...]

“Steve is a well-respected and knowledgeable journalist who already has become a natural part of CNN’s political coverage,” said Sam Feist, CNN’s political director. “As part of the ‘Best Political Team on Television,’ Steve will help CNN in its commitment to go beyond political spin and present viewers with the most in-depth and bipartisan insights.”

Over the past eight years, Hayes has done little more than spin for the Bush administration’s “war on terror.” Hayes was one of the foremost peddlers of the false claim that Saddam Hussein was in league with Al Qaeda, something that even Doug Feith, one of Hayes’ supposed sources, later disavowed.

Spencer Ackerman wrote that Hayes “has made a career out of pretending Saddam and Al Qaeda were in league to attack the United States”:

He published a book — tellingly wafer-thin and with large type in its hardcover edition — called “The Connection.” One infamous piece even suggested that Saddam might have aided the 9/11 attack. Hayes can be relied on to provide a farrago of speciousness every time new information emerges refuting his deceptive thesis. Unsurprisingly, [Dick] Cheney has repeatedly praised Hayes’s work, telling Fox News, “I think Steve Hayes has done an effective job in his article of laying out a lot of those connections.“

Hayes later returned the favor, penning a worshipful biography of Cheney that Michael Emerson called “a wet kiss…filled with glowing praise from cover to cover.”

The Wonk Room argues that the issue is not whether the president is tested, but how he responds.

Back in 2006, Hagee declared that “Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.” Hagee said that “New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God,” because “there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came.”

ThinkProgress asked Rev. Hagee’s spokesperson, Kara Silverman, whether Gustav’s possible impact on the Republican National Convention might be seen as punishment against Republicans for their not having done enough to combat the “homosexual agenda,” or whether this storm could be attributed to some other target of divine wrath.

Ms. Silverman said Hagee had “no comment.”

This conservative urban legend was recently parroted by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in his dissent from the Court’s Boumediene decision. Scalia wrote that granting habeas corpus rights to Gitmo detainees “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed,” and supported this view by asserting that “at least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantanamo Bay have returned to the battlefield.”

The new Seton Hall report (pdf) states that “Justice Scalia’s claim of 30 recidivist detainees is belied by all reliable data” :

Despite being repeatedly debunked, this statement has been reflexively accepted as true by Members of Congress and much of the American public. Justice Scalia is only the most recent disseminator of an urban legend that refuses to die. [...]

[Scalia's] source was a year-old Senate Minority Report, which in turn was based on misinformation provided by the Department of Defense.

Justice Scalia’s reliance on these sources would have been more justifiable had the urban legend he perpetuated not been (one would have thought) permanently interred by later developments, including a 2007 Department of Defense Press Release and hearings before the House Foreign Relations Committee less than two weeks before Justice Scalia’s dissent was released.

Among the report’s conclusions:

– According to the Department of Defense’s published and unpublished data and reports, not a single released Guantánamo detainee has ever attacked any Americans.

– Despite national security concerns, the Department of Defense does not have a system for tracking the conduct or even the whereabouts of released detainees.

While there is little evidence that fighters interred at Guantanamo Bay — that is, those who were fighters before they got there — have attacked Americans, there is quite a bit of evidence that, for those falsely imprisoned there and for many young Muslims watching around the world, Guantanamo has a politically radicalizing effect. Maintaining Guantanamo and other illegal detention sites hurts America’s image abroad, and calls into question America’s support for human rights and the rule of law. There is no good argument against closing it down.

Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.

No president before George W. Bush ever suggested that American security required us to just go decapitate regimes on the theory that they might some day in the future acquire weapons that would be dangerous. It’s been a huge disaster.

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There’s more over at the Wonk Room.

More at the Wonk Room.