At one point, a reporter asked Perry how he views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of his Christian faith. Perry replied by saying that as a “Christian,” he has a “clear directive to support Israel”:

PERRY: As a Christian I have a clear directive to support Israel, from my perspective its pretty easy both as an American and a Christian. I am going to stand with Israel.

In 2009, Perry struck a similar tone talking with the Weekly Standard. “My faith requires me to support Israel,” he said. One has to wonder what other foreign policy initiatives Perry feels he is directed to take from the Bible.

The United Nations Security Council

ThinkProgress has reviewed the positions of the 13 Security Council members. Five members are firm supporters of the Palestinian bid, while two, like the United States are opposed. The largest group of countries is the undecided:

FOR THE PALESTINIAN BID

CHINA: The Chinese government announced early this month that it “respects, understands and supports” the Palestinian bid.

INDIA: India, “the first non-Arab state to recognise Palestine in 1988,” announced last week that it would support the Palestinian bid.

LEBANON: Lebanon has announced that it will vote in support of the Palestinian bid.

RUSSIA: Russia announced last week that it will support the Palestinian bid. “We will, of course, vote for any of the Palestinian proposals. But I must say that we did not push them toward this,” said envoy Vitaly Churkin.

SOUTH AFRICA: South Africa announced earlier this month that it will support the Palestinian bid. It will also be actively lobbying African Union member countries to throw their support behind the Palestinians.

UNDECIDED ON THE BID

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: Bosnia and Herzegovina is at this time undecided on how it will vote. The Palestinian delegation has been lobbying them heavily since last week.

BRAZIL: Brazil has not announced an official position on the vote yet. However, a spokesman for Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff did note that the country already recognizes Palestine as a state and that there will be “no change in that position,” signaling that the Brazilians are leaning toward a “yes” vote.

COLOMBIA: Colombia has not announced a strong position on the bid, but they are being heavily lobbied by Israeli officials to oppose the Palestinian move. Colombia has been seeking closer ties with Israel lately.

FRANCE: France has not announced how it will vote on Abbas’ move for full membership. It has offered, however, to support Palestinian efforts to seek limited membership, which they could achieve by going to the General Assembly.

GABON: The Palestinians are currently lobbying Gabon’s government to support their bid. Foreign Policy’s David Bosco argues that they are “on the fence.”

NIGERIA: Israeli officials still consider Nigeria to be “in play” as it is undecided.

PORTUGAL: Portugal remains undecided. Some European Union diplomats expect Portugal to vote in favor.

UNITED KINGDOM: The United Kingdom is “still refusing to clarify exactly how it will vote when Palestinians” bid for full membership. A majority of the British public support the bid.

OPPOSED TO THE BID

GERMANY: Germany is one of the few European Union members who have firmly committed to voting against full membership for Palestine.

UNITED STATES: The United States is strongly opposed to the Palestinian bid. American diplomats and public officials have said that the move would be counterproductive and derail negotiations with Israel. Polling shows that a plurality of Americans support the bid.

While the Palestinians lobby world governments to support their move for membership, a new poll released by the BBC and Globescan finds that global public opinion is leaning in their favor. Forty-nine percent of people in 19 countries polled supported the Palestinian bid and 21 percent were opposed. Support was highest in Egypt with 90 percent of people in favor and 9 percent opposed, and lowest in India, with 32 percent in favor and 25 percent opposed.

President Obama at the United Nations in 2010.

Using a portion of Obama’s speech before the United Nations General Assembly in 2010, the ad points out that Obama wanted an agreement for a “new member of the United Nations, an independent, sovereign state of Palestine living in peace with Israel” this year. “If he said it, he must have meant it,” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says in the commercial.

Indeed, Obama expressing hope that the Palestinians could achieve statehood this year was a highlight of his U.N. speech last year and drew large applause from attendees. Watch Obama’s words then:

The United Nations Security Council and/or General Assembly are expected to vote on Palestinian statehood within the next two weeks. The United States has been pressuring the Palestinians to drop their statehood bid, while most U.N. member states are expected to support the Palestinian effort.

Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin notes that the Palestinians are also developing secondary options in case the United States vetoes their bid in the Security Council. One of these options is invoking the Korean War-era U.N. Resolution 377, which would allow the Palestinians to seek a General Assembly vote to be a non-member state. Under the guidelines of this resolution, the Palestinians would need nine out of 15 Security Council votes to refer the matter to the General Assembly. Another option being floated is to repeatedly go to the Security Council, forcing the United States to veto again and again.

Israeli Commandos Board A Flotilla Ship

While the report affirmed the legitimacy of Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip for security reasons, the authors called the loss of life resulting from Israel’s raid “unacceptable.” The report called on Israel to express “regret” — something Israeli officials have already rejected — and pay compensation to the families of victims.

The panel also placed some blame on the flotilla organizers. The report admonished flotilla participants for acting “recklessly” in their attempt to break the blockade of Gaza and questioned the motives of a Turkish Islamic NGO that spearheaded the effort, though it acknowledged that the “majority of the flotilla participants had no violent intentions.”

One of the victims of the raid, Furkan Doğan, was an American citizen of Turkish descent who lived in Turkey. The report described the circumstances of his death and its immediate aftermath:

Furkan Doğan received five gunshot wounds in the back of his head, nose, left leg, left ankle and in the back, all from close range. A citizen of the United States, Mr. Doğan was a 19-year-old high school student with ambitions of becoming a medical doctor. Mr. Doğan’s motionless, wounded body was kicked and shot upon, execution-style by two Israeli soldiers.

In a different section, the report goes on:

At least one of those killed, Furkan Doğan, was shot at extremely close range. Mr. Doğan sustained wounds to the face, back of the skull, back and left leg. That suggests he may already have been lying wounded when the fatal shot was delivered, as suggested by witness accounts to that effect.

No evidence has been provided to establish that any of the deceased were armed with lethal weapons.

The panel found those facts to be “of particular concern,” and expressed consternation that Israel did not provide any information about the specific killings beyond decrying the “chaotic” atmosphere. The report did acknowledge that once the Israeli commandos boarded the Turkish boat, the Mavi Marmara, they were compelled to use force because of resistance from flotilla participants.

The raid on the boat soured relations between Turkey and Israel, formerly strong Middle East allies. Both have close security relationships with the U.S. With Israel’s refusal to accept recommendations of the report, a thaw in relations in the near term seems unlikely.

In the letter, Perry repeats unfounded allegations by Israeli government officials — debunked yesterday by the Israeli press — that the Gaza flotilla has violent intentions against Israel:

According to numerous recent media reports, American citizens and organizations, together with a coalition of violent anti-Israel organizations from other countries, have organized efforts to breach Israel’s maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip as early as this week. …

The acts of funding, support, organizing and engaging in these efforts appears to constitute participation in a naval expedition against against a people with whom the United States is at peace…; the furnishing of a vessel with the intent that it be employed to commit hostilities against a people with whom the United States is at peace…; and the provision of material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.

There is no evidence that any participants in the flotilla plan “to commit hostilities” against anyone. In fact, an IDF spokesperson and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed this canard before it was debunked by the Israeli and American press. Cabinet ministers insisted  the evidence given to the press was “the exact opposite of what we were given,” even calling the talking point “public relations hysteria” and “spin.” One of the boats of Americans bound for Gaza responded to the baseless accusation by opening up everything — crew, passengers, the boat and the cargo — for inspection by the media. And Mondoweiss posted a video of flotilla participants receiving training in non-violence.

The notion — echoing the call of two staunch Israel supporters in Congress — that flotilla participants can be prosecuted for material terror is flimsy at best and made in bad faith at worst. Richard Levy, a civil rights lawyer from New York who plans to sail for Gaza, told ThinkProgress by phone from Greece that participants from the U.S. boat have not coordinated at all with Hamas. Asked by ThinkProgress about contacts with groups listed by the U.S. as terrorists, he said:

The answer is no. The only contact we’ve had is with an arts group in Gaza and a civil society group there. We’ve been very careful to avoid contact that would create those kinds of problems.

Levy called Perry an “outrageous liar” and said his letter was clearly politically motivated to curry favor with Washington’s powerful right wing pro-Israel lobby as he builds his presidential candidacy. Levy said it was “the worst kind of pandering.”

At least one Republican from Perry’s home state agreed that the letter was political: “Is it political? Probably,” said State Senator Florence Shapiro, adding that she nonetheless thought Perry was sincere in his “commitment and his deep passion for the Israeli people, and for the country itself.”

During the speech, West turned to the issue of the Gaza flotilla that has been making headlines in recent weeks. A group of pro-Palestinian activists, led by several Turkish groups, have said they plan to sail to Gaza on a humanitarian mission to break the Israeli blockade. Last year, Israeli commandos killed a number of activists on a similar mission, including one American citizen.

But West seems to think that because Turks are involved in the flotilla, it’s actually the Turkish government that is leading the charge. Thus, West said to Gaffney’s group, because Turkey is a NATO ally, the United States would have to attack Israel if Israeli defense forces again storm the flotilla:

WEST: And be very nervous about one simple thing. I know that we were talking about this flotilla. If Turkey establishes a flotilla, and supports a flotilla going down, and all of the sudden Israel attacks this flotilla, Turkey is a member of the EU and also a member of the NATO, can wave and say, “As a member of NATO, we have been attacked and therefore, part of the charter is all NATO countries must come to the aid of a NATO member that’s been attacked.”

And see, this is the kind of stuff that I sit down in my lonely little apartment in Washington, DC and I think about.

During the same speech, West also called Fatah, the political block ruling the Palestinian Authority, “a terrorist group,” adding that if the Palestinians go to the U.N. this summer to declare statehood, it will be “nothing more than a new terrorist state.” Watch it:

First, “Fatah is not currently regarded as a terrorist organization by any government.” But second, West’s understanding of NATO and the situation with the flotilla is way off. Turkish rights groups, not the Turkish government, are sponsoring the flotilla, thereby making NATO, and Article V of the Washington Treaty, completely irrelevant. Moreover, Haaretz reported this week that Turkish representation in the flotilla will be limited because the main flotilla sponsor, the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation, announced that it will not participate in the mission.

But also, even if West’s imaginary scenario had some sort of basis in reality, he’d know that the United States never attacked Israel last year when Israeli commandos raided the flotilla. In fact, the U.S. government barely said anything about the Israelis killing an American during the operation.

It’s sort of ironic then, that West said in the same speech that the GOP’s presidential candidates don’t know anything about national security. Yet, these are the issues that, according to West, he sits down in his lonely apartment in DC and thinks about.

The hoax is only the latest of what is often called the “pinkwashing” of Israel — using the Jewish State’s general openness to its LGBT community as a public relations bludgeon to demonize Israel’s Arab and Muslim adversaries, where LGBT communities face oppression and discrimination.

“Marc,” the star of the high-production-value clip, said he became interested in broadening his activism beyond LGBT issues by working for the flotilla. He claims that, after he contacted organizers, he was told his participation was not in the “overall interests of the flotilla,” insinuating a homophobic strain among participants. The “activist” said he began to further explore the flotilla, and found photos of participants interacting with officials from the militant Hamas group that runs the blockaded Gaza Strip. Watch it:

The video’s authenticity started to unravel almost immediately. The New York Times’s Lede blog, declaring the video a “hoax,” reported there has been “no evidence of homophobia by the [flotilla organizers], and indeed some of the participants in the new flotilla are gay.”

Bloggers Max Blumenthal, Ali Abunimah, and Benjamin Doherty quickly showed a trail of promotion by employees of top Israeli government offices — including that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and the true identity of the “activist.” His name was not “Marc” at all, but rather Omer Gershon.

Gershon, who no reporter seems to be able to reach, appears to be an Israeli aspiring actor and entrepreneur who was running a night club in Tel Aviv in 2009. Netanyahu’s office gave an Israeli reporter a statement noting that they promote various online content when it “can serve Israel’s campaigns.”

To criticize parties around the world that take anti-LGBT stances is of course perfectly fine, but creating a hoax video to discredit the flotilla activists — for a conjured incident of homophobia — under the banner of an LGBT rights makes a mockery of that struggle.

The Gaza aid ship Mavi Marmara, which came under attack last year

As ThinkProgress’s Ali Gharib previously noted, the State Department recently put out a statement warning that American citizens who join a flotilla of aid ships to Gaza that is leaving soon — the lead U.S. boat is calling itself the Audacity of Hope — may face arrest, injury, or even death resulting form Israeli military activities. This warning is particularly important given last year’s events, where a U.S. citizen was killed while aboard an aid flotilla.

Now, six Members of Congress have written a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking her to ensure the safety of Americans onboard aid flotillas to Gaza. The Members note that while Israel has every right to defend itself, that the measures it takes must “conform to international humanitarian and human rights law” and that the U.S. must also work to protect its own citizens:

We write to express our concern for the safety of American passengers on the U.S. ship The Audacity of Hope, which will set sail for Gaza in the next few days. We request that you do everything in your power to work with the Israeli government to ensure the safety of the U.S. citizens on board. [...]

We wholeheartedly support Israel’s right, and indeed its duty, to protect its citizens from security threats. The measures it uses to do so, as in the case with any other nation, must conform to international humanitarian and human rights law. We are encouraged that The Audacity of Hope organizers have stated that their cargo “is open to international inspection” and that they “are fully committed to nonviolence and the the tenets of international law”.

The letter comes at a time when other governments are taking much sterner lines on protecting the activists aboard the flotilla. “Israel must exercise all possible restraint and avoid any use of military force if attempting to uphold their naval blockade,” said Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Eamon Gilmore. “In particular, I would expect that any interception of ships is conducted in a peaceful manner and does not endanger the safety of our citizens or other participants.”

Why is a Palestinian activist app banned by Apple but Israeli propaganda is allowed?

Yet Apple does not seem to be giving similar treatment to an app published by the Israeli Ministry of Affairs (MFA). The “Israel MFA” app features a newsroom, YouTube videos, and photos that portray the Palestinians as obstinant and violent, and convey the message that Israel is committed to peace. In the newsroom section, there are links to stories such as “Palestinian incitement distances peace” and praising the supposed “Israeli humanitarian lifeline to Gaza”:

As you can see from the screenshot above — or if you download the app by following the link here — the Israel MFA appears to have a mirrored purpose to the Third Intifada app that Apple banned — namely, to tell one side’s narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This would appear to be an instance where the company is applying its policies in an inconsistent manner.

This isn’t the first time the company has been engaged in such activity. In 2009, Apple rejected an app advocating for single payer health care, reportedly calling it “politically charged.” One has to wonder why the company views the Palestinian cause or single payer health care as too politically toxic but does not feel the same way about an Israeli government progaganda outlet.