President Obama was perhaps not specific enough when he told an audience at the State Department last Thursday, as part of his big speech on the Arab Spring, “The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.” With more time to focus on just what “mutually agreed swaps” meant at AIPAC’s annual summit, Obama readily offered details. But that didn’t stop legions of Israel’s right-wing supporters from launching attacks on Obama that mischaracterized his position (which incidentally lined up with his two predecessors in office).

But the latest salvo from neoconservatives on this front is perhaps the most factually challenged. At the neocon flagship magazine Commentary, writer Alana Goodman picked up on an interview given by Israeli-American businessman and high-profile Democratic Party donor Haim Saban. Saban told CNBC that he wasn’t planning on donating to Obama’s re-election campaign. Under the headline “Key Jewish Donor Breaks with Obama,” Goodman seized on the opportunity to show a potential weakness among Jewish supporters of Democrats:

There have been reports that Obama is losing Jewish support after his clash with Prime Minister Netanyahu last week, but this development is the most significant so far. If a key donor like Saban has decided to break with the president, then there are likely others who will follow suit.

The only problem with this analysis is that Saban is not breaking with Obama at all. As detailed in Connie Bruck’s 2010 profile of Saban in the New Yorker, the California-based billionaire never got on board with Obama in the first place. But the New Yorker article is long, so an easier way to fact-check the claim would have been to simply pump Saban’s name into any of the many databases that track financial donations. In the 2008 presidential cycle, Saban didn’t donate any money to Obama.

Nonetheless, Goodman went on to quote former AIPAC official and director of a neoconservative think tank Steve Rosen — who recently dodged questions about whether using 1967 lines as a basis for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations had been U.S. policy “for years” — to back up her misleading implication that Saban’s comments are “significant”.

Neocons, who are mostly though not exclusively Jewish, have long sought to explain why, unlike them, most American Jews are liberals, seeking to use Israel as a partisan wedge issue to peel off Democrats’ Jewish support. Seventy-eight percent of American Jews voted for Obama in 2008 despite a whisper campaign to paint him as anti-Israel.

The absence of any evidence to back up Goodman’s claim, however, didn’t stop other media from picking up the assertion. The right wing New York Post, with the headline “Jews may actually close their wallets to Obama”, described wide-reaching implications of the fictitious story of “Saban’s choice to cut off Obama.” And the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot wrote, under the headline “Haim Saban: No More Donations To Obama”, that Saban “hinted that he will not continue to donate (to Obama) in 2012.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition’s twitter feed has also been going nuts all day, pushing the story and playing up its significance. Ron Kampeas, one of the best reporters in Washington’s Jewish journalism scene, pushed back in a reply: “I know you want to run with it, but it’s time to give it up.”

To their credit, all the outlets noted that Saban explicitly said that he expects to continue making robust donations to Democratic election committees and other Democratic candidates. But this further evidence contradicting any shift still leaves the basic question unanswered: Where is the “break” with Obama? (HT: @lrozen)

One of the most controversial national security policies of the Obama administration revolves around the case of radical Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen living in Yemen. Awlaki is suspected of being engaged in helping inspire and organize terrorist attacks against the United States. More than a year ago, the Obama administration gave the green light to a potential targeted killing of Awlaki, effectively targeting a U.S. citizen for assassination.

As the New York Times reported at the time, “It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing, officials said. A former senior legal official in the administration of George W. Bush said he did not know of any American who was approved for targeted killing under the former president.”

Now, in an interview with The Atlantic, GOP Presidential contender Herman Cain was asked about this policy and whether he would also approve of assassinating Americans. Cain at first seemed unaware of the policy, but later affirmed that he believed every American has a right to due process and that we should not be assassinating U.S. citizens:

INTERVIEWER: President Obama has said that he has the authority to assassinate American citizens if he’s declared them an enemy combatant in the War on Terror. Al Awlaki is one guy who is on the official government list where he can be taken out. Do you have any thoughts on that? Is it a good policy because it allows us to take out Americans who may have joined Al Qaeda? Or is it a bad policy -

CAIN: Well first of all, this is the first that I have heard – you’re saying it’s okay to take out American citizens if he suspects they are terrorist related. Is that what you said?!

INTERVIEWER: Yes, that’s what I said.

CAIN: I’ve got to be honest with you. I have not heard that. I had not heard that’s something that he said. I don’t believe that the president of the United States should order the assassination of citizens of the United States. That’s why we have our court system, and that’s why we have our laws. Even if the person is suspected of being affiliated with terrorism, if they are a citizen of this country, they still deserve the rights of this country, which includes due process. Osama bin Laden was not a citizen of the United States of America. So I would not have changed the decision the president made in that regard. But if you’re a citizen, no, it is not right for the president to to think he has the power to have you assassinated. No. He has the power to make sure you’re locked up, but you have to go through due process.

Cain’s position puts him to the left of the Obama administration and many of his Republican colleagues. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), for example, vigorously spoke out against an American Civil Liberties Union legal challenge to the Obama administration’s kill order, saying that the lawsuit would have limited “the Commander in Chief’s options” and “do great damage to our national security.” (HT: @ggreenwald)

Last weekend, Rep. Dan Webster (R-FL) appeared on “Good Life 45,” a televangelist program based near his central-Florida district. At one point during the discussion, which was centered around ways to reduce government spending, Webster recalled that many of his constituents had asked about cutting foreign aid. Webster explained that the government cannot “get rid of all foreign aid” because that would endanger money for Israel.

Rather than making a policy-based argument to back up his firm belief in giving billions in foreign aid to Israel, Webster said the money is necessary to ensure “God’s hand” stays with America. “I love giving money to Israel,” Webster exclaimed. If we end the assistance to Israel, Webster continued, “we lose God’s hand and we’re in big trouble”:

WEBSTER: I believe God’s hand needs to be on this country.

HOST: That’s right.

WEBSTER: Some people have been talking about, every place I go, they bring up the issue foreign aid. I go, you can’t get rid of all foreign aid. Why? Because you ask them and they go, ‘yea we can’t do that.’ You take away the money from Israel? No. That’s something we can’t do. Do I like foreign aid? Sometimes, but not every time. Don’t like giving money to our enemies, but I love giving money to Israel. And so there’s a picture there that people realize that, we stop helping Israel, we lose God’s hand and we’re in big time trouble.

HOST: That’s right.

Watch it:

Currently, Israel is the top recipient of foreign aid money from the United States ($2.4 billion). It’s not clear which countries Webster was referring to when he said he doesn’t “like giving money to our enemies.”

Webster’s religious argument for assisting Israel echos the belief of Christian Zionists that Israel will play a central role in the apocalyptic end-times. One interpretation of the Bible, held by a large portion of Christian evangelicals, is that the return of Jesus requires that Jews control the “Holy Land.” Over the last two decades, both Israeli lobbyists and right-wing Christians have harnessed this growing belief to build support for Israeli government actions and for unchecked taxpayer assistance to the Israeli military.

Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio has made a name for himself as “America’s toughest Sheriff.” For the past several years, Arpaio has waged a crusade against Maricopa County’s undocumented population through immigration sweeps and dehumanizing tactics.

Yet, it turns out Arpaio’s own Sheriff’s Office is part of the problem. While Arpaio has targeted pregnant immigrant women and undocumented families, three members of his own office may have been members of an international drug and human trafficking ring. The Associated Press reports:

Three employees of America’s self-proclaimed toughest sheriff have been arrested in a drug and human trafficking case, authorities said Tuesday. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said a deputy and two female detention officers at the sheriff’s largest jail facility were among 12 people taken into custody and accused of being in a Phoenix-based international drug smuggling ring. [...]

As part of the investigation, officers on Tuesday seized 10 pounds of heroin, nearly $200,000 in cash, weapons, vehicles and stolen property.

The story goes on to explain that detention officer Marcella Hernandez is pregnant with the child of an alleged member of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel. Deputy Ruben Navarette — who was once assigned to the sheriff’s human smuggling unit — has been charged with human smuggling, money laundering, controlling an illegal enterprise, and conspiracy. Hernandez faces felony charges. Seven other employees of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office are being investigated for their possible involvement.

The news come just as two of Arpaio’s top aides were forced to resign over misconduct, mismanagement and criminal behavior allegations. A financial review of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office records recently revealed that his office misspent at least $99.5 million over the last eight years.

Arpaio flippantly responded to today’s news, stating, “Every organization, you’re going to find some people who do wrong…It’s human nature.”