Republican Presidential hopeful Texas Gov. Rick Perry broke with more than 40 years of bipartisan U.S. policy and issued a statement of blanket support for Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Perry also broke with more than 60 years of U.S. policy and declared that, among his first acts as president, he would move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Perry about the topics during an interview:

BLITZER: Since ’67, every U.S. president, Democrat and Republican, have called Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories, in the West Bank, illegal under international law. Would you continue that activity?

PERRY: …No I wouldn’t. I consider the Israeli settlements to be legal, from my perspective, and I support them.

BLITZER: Even if they’re in the West Bank?

PERRY: Where there is arrangements that have been made, where the Israeli’s are clearly on Israel’s land that they have hard fought to win and to keep, absolutely.

Watch the video:

It’s not the first time Perry has endorsed the settlements. In September, he said Israel should build more. His views put Perry out of step with every administration from both parties since the occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, who unanimously viewed the settlements as a violation of the Geneva Conventions’ provisions against moving civilians into occupied territories.

Blitzer also asked if Perry would move the U.S. embassy in Israel, which is currently located in Tel Aviv, to Jerusalem. “Absolutely,” replied Perry. “As soon as I could. I would clearly say, if you want to work for the State Department of the United States, you need to be packing your bags and move to Jerusalem as soon as you can.”

The CNN host accurately pointed out that, since 1948, no administration has agreed to move the embassy. In 1995, Congress passed a law forcing the embassy move, but every president since then has exercised a waiver to keep the mission in Tel Aviv. Palestinians want to have East Jerusalem, which was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War, as the capital of their future state — a move that could be imperiled by the presence of an embassy in the city, which is technically internationalized according to international law. The embassy’s presence would be tantamount to recognizing Israel’s disputed sovereignty over all of Jerusalem.

Another GOP candidate, Mitt Romney, also said he would move the embassy. At that time, ThinkProgress interviewed Jerusalem expert Daniel Siedemann, who expounded on the pitfalls of moving the embassy:

Were an American President be actually so irresponsible as to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem outside of the context of a comprehensive permanent status agreement, such a President would contribute nothing to legitimizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Instead he would be following Israel into abject isolation, and the United States into an weakened and marginal regional and global role.

When Blitzer pointed out that all presidents had avoided the move, Perry responded, “There may not have been a president of the United States that feels as strongly about Israel as I do.” In the past, Perry has said, “My faith requires me to support Israel.”

By Ken Gude and Faiz Shakir

An article published today by Politico’s Ben Smith charges that Center for American Progress bloggers are at the heart of an “Israel rift” in the “Democratic ranks.” While we welcome the discussion, the article misrepresents our views by cherrypicking a few posts from over 300 we’ve written this year on Iran and the Middle East. In the process, Smith makes a number of mistakes. We take this as an opportunity to clarify our positions on Iran and call attention to the article’s errors.

Our view in favor of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the consensus view of administrations of both parties dating back to President Clinton. Our position is based on our strong belief that it is in the national security interests of the United States to achieve a resolution to this conflict. Politico relies on sources who claim our work is “anti-Israel” and “borderline anti-Semitic.” We categorically reject and are offended by the idea that any of our work is anti-Semitic, unless one believes the Middle East peace plan itself and ensuring Israel’s long term security by securing its neighborhood is anti-Semitic.

Iran’s nuclear program is a strong point of concern for us, the U.S., and its allies. CAP’s view is that the multilateral sanctions framework engineered by the Obama administration is an important tool in pressuring Iran to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) requirements. While we take nothing off the table, we do not believe there is any evidence that a military strike would achieve those goals, a view shared by America’s top military officials. Furthermore, we will continue to push back against the overheated rhetoric that regularly throws around calls for full scale war with Iran because such activity has an impact in the real world. Indeed, it is our belief that conservative sabre rattling not only undermines American diplomacy but also emboldens hardliners in Iran and strengthens their push for nuclear weapons.

Therefore, the best policy to weaken Iran’s push for nuclear weapons rests on diplomacy — not a military strategy. So we believe it is critically important for assertions made on policy towards Iran and elsewhere in the region be subject to careful scrutiny with the goal of ensuring that U.S. policy will be as effective as possible in limiting threats posed by Iran.

Politico also misrepresents a number of our writings on Iran. The article states:

ThinkProgress National Security reporter Eli Clifton took issue with a Quinnipiac University poll that made reference to Iran’s “nuclear program.” The belief that such a program exists undergirds the Obama administration’s drive for sanctions, and was recently bolstered by a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which wrote of “increasing” concerns, though not definitive evidence.

It is a widely accepted fact that Iran has a nuclear program but Eli’s post on the Quinnipiac poll took issue with the pollsters’ reference to the existence of “Iran’s nuclear weapons program” in polling questions. The pollsters’ assumption that a nuclear weapons program exists, a determination that neither the IAEA nor the White House has made, may have impacted the poll’s outcome. Politico, by conflating the Iranian “nuclear program” and alleged “nuclear weapons program,” is making the same mistake we were trying to highlight.

The article also asserts:

ThinkProgress also scrambled to call into question an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Saudi diplomats in the United States.

This we find very odd. Practically the entire U.S. foreign policy establishment reacted with skepticism to the bizarre and amateurish details of this plot. Eli’s post pointed to the leap to judgment made by a number of hawkish think tanks using the allegations to justify military action against Iran. Urging policymakers to wait for the conclusion of the investigation is not “call[ing] into question” the details of the plot. It is an observation that the rule of law should be respected and that all suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

And in the very next paragraph after quoting Eli’s post on the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, Politico gave the false impression that we were blaming the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) for the rush to judgment:

The villain: AIPAC. “It would appear that AIPAC is now using the same escalating measures against Iran that were used before the invasion of Iraq,” Clifton wrote in August.

AIPAC is not mentioned in Eli’s post about the assassination plot nor have we suggested that AIPAC bears any responsibility for rush to judgment on the plot, nor the right-wing calls to attack Iran because of it.

Politico’s article inaccurately portrays our positions as: anti-Israel; denying the seriousness of the charges in the alleged assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador; and denying the existence of an Iranian nuclear program. None of these positions are reflected in any posts by CAP bloggers.

At a forum hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich proclaimed that, if elected president, he would appoint former Bush administration U.N. ambassador John Bolton to be Secretary of State. Gingrich said he would require Bolton to restructure the U.S.’s entire diplomatic structure, and seek a more business-like atmosphere at State. Gingrich made the announcement to raucous applause:

If he will accept it, I will ask John Bolton to be Secretary of State. But I will only appoint him if he will agree that his first job is the complete and thorough transformation fo the State Department and the replacement of the current Foreign Service culture with a new entrepreneurial and aggressive culture dedicated to the proposition that defending freedom and defending America is the first business of the State Department, not appeasing opponents.

Watch the video:

The Senate refused to confirm the pugnacious Fox New contributor as U.N. envoy in 2006, forcing a recess appointment. Known for extremely hawkish positions and undiplomatic conduct, Bolton has maintained close ties to the Islamophobic right — but sometimes only when the money was good enough.

Today’s Republican Jewish Coalition presidential forum provided the GOP candidates plenty of opportunity to bash President Obama, particularly on foreign policy, using the tired old tropes that he is appeasing America’s enemies and projecting weakness throughout the world.

But former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum offered one of the more bizarre attacks of the morning, saying the U.S. needs to be more open about its covert operations around the world, particularly in Iran. But in very next breath, he condemned the President for disclosing to the public that he had ordered the raid on Osama bin Laden, after it had taken place:

SANTORUM: We need to say very clearly that we will be conducting covert activity to do everything we can to stop their nuclear program and that means using covert activity that may have occurred at the missile site in Iran. I would like to think the United States was involved in that. I would like to think we had something to do with that missile site.

But given the President’s record with Osama bin Laden and not being able to keep a secret of anything good that he did for even more than 24 hours I’d suspect we’d already know if we had something to do with that explosion.

Watch the clip:

So on one hand, Santorum wants to be open about U.S. covert operations that have yet to take place, and on the other, he attacks Obama for discussing one particular covert operation that had already happened, and was successful — the raid on bin Laden’s compound that resulted in the death of the al Qaeda leader.

And for the record, the president did a pretty good job at keeping mum about what he wanted to do with bin Laden. “I didn’t tell most people here in the White House. I didn’t tell my own family. It was that important for us to maintain operational security,” he said. When asked why he didn’t consult with the Pakistanis, Obama replied, “If I’m not revealing to some of my closest aides what we’re doing, then I sure as heck am not gonna be revealing it to folks who I don’t know.”

Given that Santorum takes a militaristic line against Iran over its nuclear program, it’s safe to assume that an attack on that country would be a likely scenario should he become president. At least we know he’ll give them a heads up if he decides to do it.