In a report released today as part of the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s “Romney U,” CAP’s Lawrence Korb looked at the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s defense and military spending numbers and found that they “don’t add up.” Romney’s plan would mean at least $2 trillion in increased spending over the next decade and as of yet, his campaign can’t explain how he plans to pay for it. Korb’s report charts the numbers:

Romney “promotes this approach while simultaneously promising to cut taxes and balance the budget, which is pure intellectual dishonesty,” Korb writes. “By exploding the deficit or gutting domestic programs, Gov. Romney’s plan would compromise our national security.”

Mitt Romney’s suggestion that Palestinians’ economic troubles can be attributed to an inferior culture and his decision to cancel a pre-scheduled meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas offended many in the region and opened the Republican presidential hopeful to international ridicule and charges of diplomatic incompetence.

Interestingly, Romney’s father George received a far different reception when he ran for president forty-five years earlier and traveled to Israel in December of 1967. Like his son Mitt, George embarked on an international trip to bolster his foreign policy credentials, visiting France, Great Britain, West Germany, Poland, The Soviet Union, Israel, Jordan, Thailand, South Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore.

George Romney spent two days visiting Jerusalem and held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and other government officials, describing his conversations to reporters as “significant.” Then, he crossed over to Jordan and visited a refugee camp, demonstrating that he was far more willing to consider the challenges facing the Palestinian people on his trip abroad. “I have come here to listen, to look and to learn,” he was quoted as saying in the New York Times on December 22, 1967:

As Hannah Gross at the Daily Beast said of Mitt Romney, “If Romney hopes to be viewed as a fair broker of peace between Israelis and Palestinians—a role he must play if he wants to establish a two-state solution—virtually ignoring Palestinians isn’t a strong first step.”

In the wake of yet another controversial stop on his campaign trip abroad, a host of international media criticized Mitt Romney’s positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as damaging to prospects for reviving the stalled peace process.

While in Jerusalem, Romney’s remarks must have been music to the ears of his hand-picked right-wing audience of donors and political figures. But he caused a stir with the Palestinians by putting their economic woes down to their “culture” and declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel (most of the world won’t do so because Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state).

Here’s a round-up of what some of the international media is saying about Romney’s trip to Jerusalem:

GERMANY: In an opinion piece for the centrist Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s biggest daily, Christian Wernicke wrote:

The trip to Israel may help Romney in the short term. In the long term, however, the Republican has done damage: The Middle East needs the United States as mediator. As such, the would-be president has already disqualified himself.

FRANCE: The French newspaper Le Monde noted that Romney broke with a policy upheld by successive U.S. governments for more than 60 years by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel:

(H)e delivered a speech declaring himself “very moved” to find himself Jerusalem, “the capital of Israel.”

This while the U.S. does not officially recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Their embassy, ​​like those of virtually all the countries represented in Israel, is in Tel Aviv.

AUSTRIA: The Vienna-based Kurier newspaper set the stage by mentioning the harsh British reaction to Romney’s visit to London and, in harsh terms, placed his Jerusalem comments in that context:

Now the next occasion of putting his foot in his mouth: on Sunday, the Republican called Jerusalem the “capital of Israel.”

UNITED KINGDOM: In a in opinion column for the Rupert Murdoch-owned Times of London, Hugo Rifkind wrote:

Mr. Romney’s behavior in Israel is… a throwback to a time when U.S. foreign policy considered the bulk of the Middle East to be irredeemably horrible; a great morass of messy “other” with which grown-up engagement was close to impossible. As a response to the patchwork of petty tyranny that the region used to be, this made some sense. Today, it makes none at all.

Perhaps the harshest opinion came here at home, where a New York Times editorial ripped Romney for his counter-productive pandering that does “no favors” for American interests:

Despite what Mr. Romney says, all American presidents have been pro-Israel, including Mr. Obama. But that doesn’t mean subcontracting American policy to Israeli leaders or donors. [... Romney's] policies would complicate America’s ability to act as a broker in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

How’s Romney handling the coverage given to him by the world’s media? Not well. Before leaving Poland to travel back Stateside, Romney told Fox News he blamed the media for all his stumbling blocks abroad.

Since Mitt Romney emerged from the GOP presidential primary fight as the last candidate standing, the former Massachusetts governor has struggled to differentiate his Iran policy (or any foreign policy) from President Obama’s. That changed this weekend when a top adviser said Romney would not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapons “capability” and that a President Romney would support an Israeli attack on Iran.

But yesterday, another top Romney adviser Richard Williamson went a bit further. Pressed by CNN’s Soledad O’Brien to offer a substantive difference between Romney’s and Obama’s Iran policies, Williamson at first struggled but ultimately said that the military option should be “seriously considered” if Iran “gets to nuclear breakout”:

O’BRIEN: So, are you telling me that Governor Romney would be willing to bomb Iran if it looks like they’re getting nuclear weapons? That they would whether it’s with or without Israel, bomb Iran to end that — they cross the red line, bomb Iran?

WILLIAMSON: I’m saying two things. First, on the sanctions, it’s not just talking abstractly about sanctions. This administration has allowed Moscow and Beijing to determine what sanctions we can put in force. Governor Romney has made clear he’s going to put tough sanctions in force for the coalition and not play “Mother, may I” with the U.N. Security Council.

Second, that Tehran should know that Governor Romney is committed to work everything possible diplomatically to avoid having to use force. But if it gets to nuclear breakout, military options are on the table and have to be seriously considered.

Watch the interview (conversation quoted above begins at 3:02):

While it’s unclear what Williamson means by “breakout,” that threshold by some definitions is lower than nuclear weapons capability. “Breakout” could mean the decision to acquire and action on acquiring all the necessary components for a bomb (such as enriching low-enriched uranium to a higher purity), while “capability,” what Romney’s adviser previously referred to last weekend, could be described as actually obtaning all the necessary components after the decision to breakout.

As this blog has previous noted, While Obama has said an Iranian nuclear weapon is “unacceptable,” declaring a nuclear “capability” an American “red line” that would trigger war sets a lower threshold for U.S. military involvement. The CIA has laid out a specific definition, but again, the “nuclear capability” language is a complex issue. The word “capability” has a special meaning in the non-proliferation context, but it’s not always clear exactly what. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), one of the Senate’s most vociferous Iran hawks, said this year, “I guess everybody will determine for themselves what that means.” Iran hawks in Congress pushed a bill this year to shift the official U.S. “red line” to a nuclear “capability.”

For his part, President Obama considers a potential Iranian nuclear weapon a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, as well as the nuclear non-proliferation regime. And he’s vowed again and again to keep all options on the table to deal wtih it. U.S., U.N. and Israeli intelligence estimates give the West time to pursue a dual-track approach of building international pressure and using diplomacy to resolve the crisis. Questions about the efficacy and potential consequences of a strike have led U.S. officials to declare that diplomacy is the “best and most permanent way” to resolve the crisis. Obama has also reaffirmed Israel’s “sovereign right to make its own decisions about what is required to meet its security needs.”

Between annoying the British and alienating the Palestinians, Mitt Romney seems to have found trouble everywhere he went on his overseas campaign trip. Now, the Polish trade union Solidarity, once led by Romney’s host in Poland Lech Wałęsa, disavowed the GOP presidential hopeful because of his anti-union politics.

Romney went to Gdańsk, Poland to meet with Wałęsa, who in 1980, led a workers’ strike in the Gdańsk Shipyard and helped create the Solidarity trade union. Solidarity became a thorn in the side of the Soviet-backed government, and Wałęsa eventually became a Nobel laureate and the first president of a free Poland. Wałęsa was reportedly miffed when Obama wouldn’t grant him a private greeting, and invited Romney for a visit.

But Solidarity isn’t extending the same welcome. The group distanced itself in a statement:

Regretfully, we were informed by our friends from the American headquarters of (trade union federation) AFL-CIO, which represents more than 12 million employees … that Mitt Romney supported attacks on trade unions and employees’ rights.

Solidarity was not involved in organizing Romney’s meeting with Wałęsa and did not invite him to visit Poland.

Romney has staked out anti-union positions. He supported right-to-work legislation and railed against unions in Michigan earlier this year: “I’ve taken on union bosses before. I’m happy to take them on again.” (HT: Muhammed Idrees Ahmad)

Mitt Romney’s main theme on his foreign trip to the U.K., Israel and Poland this week is that President Obama isn’t sufficiently friendly to America’s allies, particularly the Jewish State. “The people of Israel deserve better than what they have received from the leader of the free world,” Romney said in a speech just days before he left American soil.

But two senior Israeli leaders have a different view. In recent interviews with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that aired this afternoon, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and President Shimon Peres praised Obama’s commitment to Israel:

BARAK: I should tell you honestly that this administration under President Obama is doing, in regard to our security, more than anything that I can remember in the past. … In terms of the support for our security, the cooperation of our intelligence, the sharing of sorts in a very open way even when there are differences.

PERES: When I look at the record of President Obama concerning the major issues, security, I think it’s a highly satisfactory record, from an Israeli point of view.

Watch the clips:

Praise for Obama’s policies toward Israel is nothing new for Barak and Peres, but the timing of their recent acclaim is significant given Romney’s theme that the president isn’t pro-Israel.

Even Blitzer took notice. “They were extremely complimentary to President Obama, both of them, even as Romney was still basically on the ground in Israel,” Blitzer said today. “I was pretty surprised by the effusive enthusiastic praise they had for President Obama given some of the problems President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu had in their personal relationship.”

Indeed, just last week, Obama signed a measure approving $70 million for Israel’s short-range rocket shield known as “Iron Dome.” “I have made it a top priority for my administration to deepen cooperation with Israel across a whole spectrum of security issues,” Obama said.

During a speech today at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace marking the release of a report about religious freedom around the world, Secretary of State HIllary Clinton took a moment to deal with religious freedom a little closer to home. Specifically, she touched obliquely on accusations made about a top staffer in her office by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).

In a letter to the State Department demanding an investigation into alleged Muslim Brotherhood infiltration, Bachmann suggested Clinton aide Huma Abedin is tied to Muslim Bortherhood and exercising influence on what Bachmann said were “actions recently that have been enormously favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its interests.”

In a thinly veiled reference, Clinton lauded those Republicans who stood up to Bachmann’s bogus and Islamophobic allegations:

Leaders have to be active in stepping in and sending messages about protecting the diversity within their countries. … We did see some of that in our own country. We saw Republicans stepping up and standing up against the kind of assaults that really have no place in our politics.

Watch the clip:

Among those Republicans were Sen. John McCain (AZ), Sen. Scott Brown (MA), Sen. Marco Rubio (FL), House Speaker John Boehner (OH) and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (WI). The Republican Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Mike Rogers (MI) went from supporting Bachmann, who sits on his committee, to disavowing her witch-hunt. Sensenbrenner, in particular, called out Bachmann’s Islamophobic allegations as “wrong ” and an affront on religious liberty:

Religion is a personal issue to every one of the people who lives in the United States, whether you practice a faith, how you practice a faith, whether you don’t practice a faith, whether you say you’re a member of a faith but don’t practice it, it’s none of the government’s business. And this is the whole issue of religious freedom.

However, some Republicans have come out and supported Bachmann’s allegations. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) also defended Bachmann’s charges. An adviser to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, John Bolton, voiced support for Bachmann’s allegations on a radio show hosted by the progenitor of her conspiracy theories, notorious Islamophobe Frank Gaffney. Former presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, who also acts a as a surrogate for Romney, defended Bachmann, too, even writing a long Politico opinion piece today.

At a Romney campaign event in Virginia on Monday, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich took questions over his weekend op-ed defending the practice of questioning prominent Muslims in government jobs over alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and four other Republican lawmakers have been wrapped on the knuckles by prominent members of their own party for requesting an investigation into the supposed infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood into the U.S. government, and the role of Huma Abedin, a top Hillary Clinton aide, in the organization. And while Gingrich deliberately did not mention Abedin in his Sunday evening op-ed, when asked by ThinkProgress on Monday, he defended Bachmann’s call for an investigation into Abedin’s loyalty:

ADAM PECK: Do you think it was fair for the “National Security 5″ to explicitly name Huma Abedin in this letter?

GINGRICH: I think all they asked for was an investigation. I can’t imagine, given our track record over the last 70 years, that we want to start with the principle that anybody is automatically exempt. And therefore I think it’s not illegitimate to raise the question, it’s not a question I raised in my piece…Who’s offering advice to Secretary Clinton? I think it’s totally legitimate to ask that question.

What Gingrich failed to mention is that the appropriate questions have already been asked of Abedin and every other member of the Obama administration. As the top aide to the Secretary of State, Abedin underwent a thorough background and security check before assuming her position within the State Department. It seems Gingrich has stricter standards than the nation’s top intelligence agencies, which cleared Abedin.

Gingrich also makes the incorrect assumption that simply raising questions is a harmless exercise. In the weeks since Bachmann’s letter became public, Abedin has been subjected to direct threats on her life, and the NYPD has given her a security detail.

Listen to the remarks here:

In a speech to wealthy donors in Tel Aviv over the weekend, Romney praised Israel’s “economic vitality” compared to the poor Palestinian economy. He attributed the economic success of the nation to a strong culture:

I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things. …
As you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000 dollars, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality.

Palestinians took offense at Romney’s remarks, interpreting them to mean that Israel had the superior culture, and claimed that their economic development has been stymied by continued Israeli occupation. In response, the Romney campaign claimed the statement was “grossly mischaracterized” and chided the press for omitting the candidate’s full remarks. To contextualize Romney’s comparison — which actually underestimated the disparity between Israel’s GDP of US$31,000 to the West Bank and Gaza’s US$1,500 — the campaign offered his next line as proof that he did not target Palestinians: “And that is also between other countries that are near or next to each other. Chile and Ecuador, Mexico and the United States.”

This defense underscores the fundamental tone-deafness of the comparison. To give the full context, Romney discussed two economic theories, one attributing success to the physical characteristics of the land, while another attributes it to culture. He argued that the successes of Israel, the U.S. and Chile can be attributed to strong cultures; conversely, the geographically similar Palestinian, Ecuadorean and Mexican economies are the result of a poorer culture.

The “culture” argument doesn’t merely imply that poorer economies somehow deserve their fate due to an inferior value system. It makes generalizations about the characters of both populations. Abraham Diskin, a political scientist professor from Tel Aviv pointed out, “You can understand this remark in several ways. You can say it’s anti-Semitic. ‘Jews and money.’”

In their current campaign against automatic military spending cuts, Republican Senators John McCain (AZ), Lindsey Graham (SC) and Kelly Ayotte (NH) claim the reductions will be “devastating” to the U.S. military. But when asked to provide specifics on that claim on CNN this morning, McCain came up empty:

SOLEDAD O’BRIEN: Senator McCain, let’s start with you, if we can. The $500 billion cut over the next 10 years. You’ve had said that sequestration would be devastating. Give me a list of why?

MCCAIN: Well, first of all, it’s on top of another $460 billion that is already being cut. Second of all, it’s the view of Secretary Panetta and our uniform leaders who have used words like devastating, impossible to carry out our national security, challenge — meet those security challenges in the most graphic terms they have used as to the effects of these cuts.

And not to mention the job losses — the over a million jobs that would be lost and the billions of dollars also in defense industry so it’s a very serious situation.

Watch the clip:

Panetta does repeatedly say the military spending sequester would be “devastating” to the U.S. military but he has also failed to explain why. Panetta’s most specific remark on this point has been to say that the U.S. would have to reduce its presence in Latin America and Africa — i.e. hardly a “devastating” blow to the military or U.S. security. Moreover, a recent non-partisan Congressional Budget Office report found that the automatic spending cuts would bring the Pentagon’s budget back to what it spent in 2006.

As for McCain’s jobs argument, defense industry CEOs and other experts have said warnings that the military spending cuts will damage the economy and cause massive layoffs are “overblown.” And if you’re going to argue that federal spending is necessary to create jobs — a concept Republicans are now embracing in order to protect the nation’s bloated military budget — it’s probably better to, as one study has found, try to direct those dollars away from the Pentagon toward other domestic priorities.

Mitt Romney’s speech yesterday in Jerusalem focused on easy applause lines for his right-wing audience, including major donors. He was hawkish on Iran, declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, and said the U.S. should not publicly criticize Israel. Completely absent was any mention of the other residents of the Holy Land and its marquee city: Palestinians.

When Romney finally did broach the topic, he raised the ire of Palestinian officials by attributing Israel’s successes to “the power of at least culture and a few other things,” and contrasting Israeli economic gains to those of its Palestinian neighbors. At a fundraising breakfast on Monday morning, Romney said:

[A]s I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things. …

As you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000 dollars, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality.

In addition to vastly understating the disparity between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories — per capita GDP is actually $31,000 in Israel and $1,500 in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip — Romney incensed Palestinians.

Saeb Erekat, a top official in the Palestinian Authority (PA), the body that has partially governed the occupied territories since the Oslo Accords, blasted Romney’s statement:

It is a racist statement and this man doesn’t realize that the Palestinian economy cannot reach its potential because there is an Israeli occupation.

It seems to me this man lacks information, knowledge, vision and understanding of this region and its people. He also lacks knowledge about the Israelis themselves. I have not heard any Israeli official speak about cultural superiority.

While in Israel, Romney didn’t meet with PA President Mahmood Abbas, but he did briefly visit with Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Fayyad is well-regarded by Israelis and Americans alike for his attempts at institution building, something that dovetails with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sometimes faltering plan for “economic peace” with the Palestinians.

Fresh off of telling the United Kingdom that it wasn’t ready for the Olympics during an tour of London, Romney unsubtly jabbed President Obama in Jerusalem this Sunday — as he often does on U.S. soil — for criticizing Israeli policy. Romney suggested that any public criticism of Israel in public would be off-limits in a Romney Presidency:

We cannot stand silent as those who seek to undermine Israel voice their criticisms. And we certainly should not join in that criticism. Diplomatic distance in our public between our nations emboldens Israel’s adversaries.

Watch it:

Romney regularly attacks While Romney is right to say that Israel is a close American ally that deserves our support, that doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t ever publicly criticize Israel when we believe it to be in American (or Israeli) interests. Indeed, though Romney said the United States and Israel have “been the most natural of allies” since 1948, every Republican President since then has publicly criticized Israeli policies:

George W. Bush: President Bush, who once said “it is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occupation,” rebuked Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for announcing construction in the West Bank town Ma’ale Adumim, saying “the road map calls for no expansion of the settlements.”

George H.W. Bush: Like his son, Bush Sr. condemned settlement activity, saying “we do not believe there should be new settlements in the West Bank or in East Jerusalem.” He also pushed Israel to stay out of the first Gulf War.

Ronald Reagan: After Israel attacked Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, Reagan’s administration voted to condemn Israel in the U.N. Security Council. Reagan also temporarily halted security cooperation with Israel after its 1981 annexation of the Golan heights.

Gerald Ford: Ford promised a “reassessment” of US-Israel relations after failed US diplomacy with respect to an Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty.

Richard Nixon: In a United Nations debate, George H.W. Bush (then representing Nixon at the U.N.) said, with respect to settlements, “We regret Israel’s failure to acknowledge its obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention as well as its actions which are contrary to the letter and the spirit of this convention.”

Dwight Eisenhower: The first Republican President to handle diplomacy with Israel threatened it with sanctions as a consequence of its actions in the 1956 Suez Crisis, and told Americans in a radio address that “It was a matter of keen disappointment to us that the Government of Israel, despite the United Nations action, still felt unwilling to withdraw” from territory taken in the war.

Setting aside the merits of the GOP’s historical criticism, it’s clear that past Republican presidents didn’t shirk from publicly finding fault with Israel when they felt it was necessary. Romney, then, is repudiating his party’s traditional approach to handling the US-Israeli relationship. This suggests either that previous Republican Presidents have “emboldened Israel’s enemies” or that Israel’s ties with America are strong enough to weather occasional public disagreement.

Though Romney has criticized Obama’s handling of relations between the two countries as hostile towards the Jewish state, Israeli officials beg to differ: the Obama Administration has stepped up security cooperation with Israel and put unprecedented pressure on Iran’s threatening nuclear program. It does make one wonder what Romney means when he says he would “do the opposite” of Obama on Israel.