Today, the Emergency Committee for Israel (headed by Gary Bauer, Bill Kristol, and Rachel Abrams) ran a full-page ad in the New York Times smearing the Center for American Progress as being “anti-Israel” and for purportedly espousing “bigotry and anti-Israel extremism.” As our readers are well aware, these are fabricated smears which completely misrepresent CAP’s established record of incisive analysis and fair, accurate and honest reporting on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

But it is the ECI that has consistently embraced positions on Israel and the Middle East which are outside the mainstream. Don’t just take our word for it.

Last September, the American Jewish Committee’s director David Harris slammed ECI for turning Israel into a partisan wedge issue and exhibiting behavior “counterproductive to its stated aim of supporting Israel.” The head of the National Jewish Democratic Council said, “ECI’s behavior made it crystal clear that the organization is nothing more than a Republican front group bent on turning Israel into a partisan wedge issue.” And today, the Jewish Daily Forward says of the ECI ad: “[It's] one of the most virulent anti-Jewish advertisements I’ve ever seen. And it came from other Jews.”

While the ECI is quick to casually throw around divisive language, it is much slower to condemn its own ties to ethnic and religious intolerance. In October, ECI board member Rachel Abrams raised eyebrows for calling Palestinian militants “savages,” “unmanned animals,” and “food for sharks,” in a blog post.

It should come as no great surprise that ECI would choose to join in on the coordinated smear campaign against ThinkProgress. Previously, ECI has taken out ads ripping Obama for treating “Israel like a punching bag.” The attempts to paint progressives as anti-Semitic or anti-Israel has found little traction outside of fringe groups like ECI. Indeed, the misinformation campaign against ThinkProgress was widely denounced by mainstream political voices and journalists:

David Harris, National Jewish Democratic Council: CAP’s views on Israel and Iran reflect “mainstream positions and concerns of the American Jewish community — and indeed of most Americans.” Washington Post, January 20, 2012

Truman National Security Project: “CAP’s official policy positions stand up well against this smear campaign and are aimed at ensuring a mainstream foreign policy that is strong and principled.” January 20, 2012

Matt Bennett, Third Way: “We are baffled and appalled by the charges of anti-Semitism that some have leveled at CAP.” Washington Post, January 20, 2012

Joe Klein, Time Magazine: I’m not carrying water for CAP or Media Matters. I’ve disagreed with both in the past and both have criticized things I’ve written (although neither accused me of being a bigot). Calling them anti-Semitic is absurd, though. Calling David Petraeus anti-Semitic because he implied that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories made life more dangerous for U.S. troops in the region-well beyond absurd, since he was implying an obvious truth. TIME Magazine, January 19, 2012

Sarah Wildman, the Forward: “When anti-Semitism is falsely applied, we must also stand up and decry it as defamation, as character assault, as unjust.” The Forward, January 5, 2012

New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie escalated a cross-Hudson war of words with New York City last night, complaining on a radio show about allegations that the New York Police Department (NYPD) went outside its jurisdiction to spy on Muslims in Newark, Rutgers University, and possibly other locations. He said he didn’t know if the NYPD’s actions were “born out of arrogance or paranoia.”

The Associated Press has issued a series of reports on NYPD’s secret surveillance of Muslims in New York and outside the state. In response, a coalition of New Jersey Muslim groups wrote to Christie to ask for a full investigation of the allegations. The New Jersey attorney general began an investigation and, at a previous town hall meeting, deferred judgement on civil liberties issues to the outcome of the inquiry.

But spending eight minutes of his Wednesday “Ask the Governor” radio show on the matter, Christie escalated his complaints about the NYPD’s conduct on the basis of jurisdictional issues. “My concern is this kind of obsession that the NYPD seems to have that they’re the masters of the universe,” he said, noting that he did not recall being informed of the spying at the time, when he was a federal prosecutor in the state. He went on to speculate about what caused the lapse in coordination:

CHRISTIE: I don’t know if it was born out of ignorance or paranoia.

HOST: But you think lives could have been at risk, because they refuse to share or be forthcoming.

CHRISTIE: They always can be. In terms of law enforcement lives when you got people stumbling over each other who are surveilling the same people. Also, because we know… that the basis of criticism after 9/11 was the refusal of rival law enforcement agencies to share information with each other.

Watch a clip of the Christie interview:

Christie also had harsh words for NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who, like New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, has refused to apologize for the surveillance or its scope outside New York. The host of “Ask the Governor” noted that Kelly had not apologized, prompting Christie to reply: “Of course! Because he’s Ray Kelly! What are you going to do? He’s all knowing, all seeing.” Kelly came under fire last month for appearing in a film by an Islamophobic group called the Clarion Fund, and, after dissembling about his role, apologized.

Yesterday, the U.S. Attorney Eric Holder said the Justice Department was reviewing the NYPD surveillance to determine if there were civil rights violations.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey are facing increasing hostility from the right wing for their views, backed by IAEA reports and U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, that sanctions and diplomacy are effective tools in preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Just last week, Newt Gingrich slammed Dempsey, saying “I can’t imagine why he would have said [Iran is a rational actor].”

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) challenged the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s assessment of Iran’s intentions yesterday during a House committee hearing:

PRICE: I want to visit a comment you made recently regarding the nation of Iran and the statement, and I think have the quote correct here, that stunned me and many of my constituents. And that is your quote, “We are of the opinion that Iran is a rational actor.” Do you stand by that statement and maybe you wanna explain a little more?

DEMPSEY: Yes, I stand by it because the alternative is almost unimaginable. The alternative is that we attribute to them that their actions are so irrational that they have no basis of planning. You know, not to sound too academic about it but Thucydides in the fifth century B.C. said that all strategy is some combination of reaction to fear, honor and interests. And I think all nations act in response to one of those three things, even Iran. The key is to understand how they act and not trivialize their actions by attributing to them some irrationality. I think that’s a very dangerous thing for us to do. It doesn’t mean I agree with what they decide by the way but they have some thought process they follow.

Watch it:

Price wasn’t persuaded by Dempsey’s explanation and went on to question the “rationality of an assassination attempt on the Saudi ambassador in our territory” but Dempsey pushed back that while he wouldn’t justify Iran’s alleged actions, he stands by his assertion that Iran engages in calculated, rational actions.

Right-wing hawks are taking a noticeably hostile tone towards the U.S.’s top military officer following his February 19 comments to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that: Iran has not yet decided to pursue a nuclear weapon; it wouldn’t be “prudent” for Israel to attack Iran at this time, and “we are of the opinion that the Iranian regime is a rational actor.”

While the IAEA has expressed serious concerns about possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program, neither the IAEA nor U.S. intelligence reports have asserted that Iran has restarted its nuclear weapons program.

Last year the international football association, or FIFA, disqualified the Iranian women’s soccer team from a 2012 Olympics qualifying match because they wore Islamic headscarves. FIFA cited a safety issue for the ban, but as one Iranian soccer official said, “This ruling means that women soccer in Iran is over. Headscarves are simply what we wear in Iran.”

The United Nations yesterday joined the campaign to overturn FIFA’s ban, Reuters reported:

The U.N. Secretary-General’s special adviser on sport for development and peace Wilfried Lemke has written to FIFA president Sepp Blatter expressing support for the right to wear a safe, Velcro-opening headscarf. [...]

[A U.N. statement said] “It would send the message that each female player, from the top elite level down to the grassroots, has the freedom to decide whether or not to wear this particular piece of attire while on the field.

“It would give the opportunity for remarkable female athletes to demonstrate that wearing the headscarf is not an obstacle to excelling in life and sports, and would hence contribute to challenging gender stereotypes and bringing about a change in mentalities.”

Now FIFA vice president Prince Ali Bin al-Hussein of Jordan will make the case to the organization this weekend that it should overturn the ban. “The present situation is saying to women worldwide that you’re not allowed to participate for a reason that makes no sense. That’s prejudice. It’s not fair,” he says, according to the AP:

He insists that permitting hijabs is “not an issue of religious symbolism — it is simply a case of cultural modesty.”

If the motion is rejected, the prince says “there will be lot of soul searching about what the priorities are in this sport.”

Prince Ali was elected FIFA vice president more than a year ago and is, amid allegations of corruption and scandal, the Telegraph reports, “bringing energy to the effort to coax the organisation into the light.”