For the third time in two weeks, the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin today authored a blog post calling CAP and ThinkProgress “anti-Semitic” and “anti-Israel.” Prompted by an inquiry from Rubin, the Simon Wiesenthal Center has regrettably joined in the attacks on us. In a press release, the Wiesenthal Center said we “are guilty of dangerous political libels resonating with historic and toxic anti-Jewish prejudices.” While calling for raising the level of discourse on the one hand, the Wiesenthal Center makes a number of unfounded allegations. Let’s review them.

The SWC writes, “recent attacks on the Simon Wiesenthal Center by the Center for American Progress (CAP)-associated bloggers on ‘the far-right Simon Wiesenthal Center, which purports to promote tolerance, [but] basically called Obama a Nazi’ for saying that Israel should return to the pre-1967 borders.”

But the SWC omits what we were responding to — the fact that SWC attacked President Obama, claiming he wants Israel to “return to 1967 ‘Auschwitz’ borders.” Here is the headline of their May press release:

SWC: Israel Should Reject a Return to 1967 ‘Auschwitz’ Borders

We found the reference to Auschwitz to be gratuitous and inflammatory in the context of President Obama’s address. Leaving aside whether one considers the 1967 lines to be defensible, the fact is that is that President Obama did not call for Israel to return to those lines, only that they should be the basis for negotiations. Back in May, we highlighted a number of baseless right-wing attacks on Obama for his proposition that “a lasting peace” between the Israelis and the Palestinians “will involve two states” and that “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines.” Obama’s pronouncement wasn’t new; President Bush in 2005 endorsed a two-state solution with negotiations based on the post-1949 Armistice, pre-1967 borders.

Also in its press release today, the Wiesenthal Center suggested that ThinkProgress was out of bounds when we “articulated the view that it is ‘factually inaccurate’ to assume that ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’ — and, in any case, that the danger posed by that program is exaggerated for political purposes.” This is a misrepresentation of what we wrote.

The SWC is referring to a recent ThinkProgress post titled “Quinnipiac Poll Poses Factually Inaccurate Questions Assuming Iran Has A Nuke Weapons Program.” In this post, we took issue with the pollsters’ reference to the existence of “Iran’s nuclear weapons program” in polling questions and noted that that assertion — a determination that neither the International Atomic Energy Agency nor the White House has made — may have impacted the poll’s outcome. In fact, the Washington Post’s ombudsman recently addressed this issue and agreed, warning reporters and policy makers of “[g]etting ahead of the facts on” Iran’s nuclear program.

It is incorrect to assert that we do not take the threat of Iran’s nuclear program seriously. As we noted last week, the Iranian issue is a strong point of concern for us. While we support the Obama administration’s position of “no options off the table,” we do not believe that a military strike would achieve those goals, and we will continue to push back against overheated rhetoric calling for war with Iran.

The Wiesenthal Center does some great work on tolerance that we support. But an effort to build partnerships can and must begin with an understanding that we have shared goals. We’re happy to join in a common pledge of raising the level of discourse. Rejecting the outrageous charges of anti-Semitism made against us lodged by Jennifer Rubin would be a good start.

Last week’s Republican Jewish Coaltion (RJC) Presidential candidates forum offered a venue for all the GOP’s presidential hopefuls – except Ron Paul — to criticize President Barack Obama’s handling of the U.S.-Israel relationship. But Washington Jewish Week’s Adam Kredo reports that Israel’s ambassador, Michael Oren, had nothing but kind words for Obama at a Hanukkah party hosted on Thursday of last week by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz (D-Fla.).

Oren reportedly told a story about asking Obama for fire fighting assistance when forest fires swept through Israel’s Carmel Forest last year:

Netanyahu directed his ambassador to, “Quick, go ask President Obama for help.”

That’s when Oren entered the White House and asked to see the president.

“I told him the situation and without hesitation, President Obama turned to one of his aides and said, ‘get Israel whatever it needs. Now,’ ” Oren recalled. [...]

“Later that night,” Oren continued, “I learned, that the President left the Hanukkah reception and flew secretly to Afghanistan. Upon arriving, he called Washington and the first question he asked, ‘Has Israel gotten its planes?’ He also called Prime Minister Netanyahu and expressed his condolences for Israel’s losses and America’s commitment to Israel’s wellbeing.“

Oren’s story of close cooperation between the U.S. and Israel, not to mention Obama’s clear commitment to Israel’s well-being and security, flies in the face of the accusations liberally thrown around the RJC’s event.

Mitt Romney claimed, “Over the last three years President Obama has… chastened Israel.” Rick Perry accused the administration of a “torrent of hostility” toward Israel. And Newt Gingrich criticized the administration for failing to reprimand “the Secretary of Defense for an insulting performance the other day” after Leon Panetta called for Israelis and Palestinians to “get to the damn [negotiating] table.”

But listening to Michael Oren’s story of Obama’s commitment to Israel, it’s unclear how or when Obama has been anything less than a committed ally to Israel. And just last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reflected on Obama’s security guarantees to Israel, concluding, “he has backed those words with deeds.” While Republican presidential candidates may see attacking Obama’s pro-Israel credentials as a useful campaign ploy, Israel’s prime minister and ambassador to the U.S. are telling a very different story of the White House’s relationship with the Jewish state.

Yesterday during his press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, President Obama said the administration has asked the Iranians to return the surveillance drone that was downed in Iranian territory last week. “We have asked for it back — we’ll see how the Iranians respond,” Obama said. However the chances that Iran will respond positively to that request appear dim, as Iran’s Defense Minister said today, “Instead of apologizing to the Iranian nation, [the U.S.] is brazenly asking for the drone back.”

Talking with CNN’s Erin Burnett last night, Vice President Cheney offered what he said would’ve been the “right response” — to bomb Iran:

CHENEY: The right response to that would have been to go in immediately after it had gone down and destroy it. You can do that from the air. You can do that with a quick airstrike, and in effect make it impossible for them to benefit from having captured that drone. I was told that the president had three options on his desk. He rejected all of them. [...]

They all involved sending somebody in to try to recover it, or if you can’t do that, admittedly that would be a difficult operation, you certainly could have gone in and destroyed it on the ground with an airstrike. But he didn’t take any of the options. He asked for them to return it. And they aren’t going to do that.

Watch the clip:

Just a “quick airstrike,” Cheney said was all it would take. Nothing fancy. Of course this particularly direction doesn’t take into account how the Iranians might perceive and react to an American bombing campaign on their soil.

It’s also worth noting that early on during the Bush administration — when Cheney was arguably running the foreign policy show — President Bush pursued a similar course that Obama chose with the drone when an American spy-plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet and was forced to land on Chinese territory. Instead of bombing the plane, the United States issued a letter of apology saying it was “very sorry.” The Chinese released the American flight crew and returned the plane in pieces three months later.

Washington Post columnist and former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson examines Newt Gingrich’s history of anti-Muslim fear-bating and concludes that “those views demonstrate a disturbing tendency: the passionate embrace of shallow ideas.” But Gerson fails to acknowledge that Gingrich’s “shallow ideas” are more than just rhetoric. Gingrich has a plan to put them into action.

Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute last year, Gingrich told the audience:

It’s time we had a national debate on this. And one of the things I’m going to suggest today is a federal law that says ‘no court, anywhere in the United States, under any circumstances, is allowed to consider Sharia as a replacement for American law.’ Period.

Watch it:

And Gingrich’s 2010 documentary, “America At Risk: The War With No Name,” portrays a disturbing vision of the world in which the U.S. and its western allies are at war with Islam. “This war will go on until either the entire world either embraces Islam or submits to Islamic rule,” says historian Bernard Lewis, while appearing in the film.

Further exemplifying his anti-Muslim sentiments, In an interview last week, Gingrich explained that the Palestinians are an “invented people,” a statement effectively denying the right of Palestinians to a state. Such a position would end U.S. support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and rejects the policy positions of the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama administrations.

Gerson’s effort to flag Gingrich’s anti-Sharia rhetoric as “simplistic” is a welcome pushback against the growing Islamophobia in the far-right. (We addressed this problem in our recent report “Fear Inc.: The Roots Of the Islamophobia Network In America.”) But Gerson fails to acknowledge the potential domestic and foreign policy implications of Gingrich’s anti-Muslim statements.

In the latest of a recent trend of attacks in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank, dozens of right-wing Israeli settlers stormed an army base in order to punish the state. The settlers reportedly accosted soldiers, threw rocks at a commander from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), set fires and vandalized army property. Rock throwing led to a minor injury, and the number of arrests differed between media accounts, with the AP reporting that two were in custody and the Israeli paper Haaretz reporting no arrests were made.

The attack is the latest in a string of recent provocations by settlers, and on the heels of an action by settlers on the border with Jordan. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak called the assailants “criminal groups of extremists,” and added that their “homegrown terror” should be met forcefully. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered security forces to “act aggressively against those harming Israeli soldiers and their commanders.”

The settlers live in West Bank territory occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six Day War — against the norms of international laws — and within the confines of what would be a future Palestinian State. Beginning in 2008, settlers launched “price tag” attacks “against Palestinians and their property in response to attempts by the Israeli authorities to dismantle ‘unauthorized’ settlement outposts,” according to a 2009 report released by the United Nations (PDF). The settlers, however, have since taken up sporadic attacks on the IDF, which carries out forcible evacuations of “outposts” (new, often ramshackle settlements set up without endorsement by the state).

Monday night’s action saw some 100 settlers gather outside the base before about 50 of them entered. Harretz reported:

The settlers were galvanized into action by rumors that the eviction of several West Bank settlements was imminent. The Supreme Court ruled in September that the state must destroy Migron, the largest outpost in the West Bank. Forty-five families live in Migron, which has a total population of 280 people.

The Supreme Court ruling, which called for evacuation of the settlement by March 2012, hinted at a political crisis for the rightist Netanyahu. Settlers from Migron visited ministers from Netanyahu’s party, Likud, to plead their cases, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (himself a West Bank settler) said evacuating Migron “would be grounds for dismantling the government” by withdrawing his nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party from the coalition.

Evacuations of settlements have even fostered divisions within the ranks of the latest “price tag” victims themselves: the Israeli army. In 2010, Eyal Press reported in the New York Review of Books that some entire battalions of soldiers with ideological sympathies for the settlers — or settlers themselves — refused to participate in evacuations of even settlements deemed illegal by the Israeli government.