Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was on the offense at last night’s NBC News Debate attacking Mitt Romney’s past at Bain Capital and President Obama’s economic and foreign policy record. But in an attack on Obama’s handling of rising tensions over the Strait of Hormuz, Gingrich dramatically misrepresented the White House’s handling of the postponement of a joint military exercise with Israel.

Gingrich — supposedly a historian in his own right — disregarded the well-reported facts of an event that occurred less than two weeks ago and brought swift condemnations from both the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) and the Washington Post’s “Fact Checker,” Glenn Kessler. Gingrich, responding to a question from debate moderator Brian Williams about a military escalation if Iran attempts to close the Strait, told the audience:

And I would say that the most dangerous thing, which by the way, Barack Obama just did, the — the Iranians are practicing closing the Strait of Hormuz, actively taunting us, so he cancels a military exercise with the Israelis so as not to be provocative?

Watch it:

Gingrich’s retelling of events from earlier this month is demonstrably inaccurate. Shortly after news broke of the postponed military exercise, Yahoo News’ Laura Rozen reported that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak requested the joint exercise be postponed.

The Jewish Telegraph Agency’s Ron Kampeas wrote that the exercise was being postponed because of “Israeli budget cuts.”

And Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren told the Jerusalem Post last Wednesday:

Such postponements are routine and do not reflect political or strategic concerns. The United States and Israel remain committed to holding the exercise – code-named Austere Challenge 12 – the largest and most robust in their historic alliance.

The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler called out Gingrich’s misrepresentation of the facts, writing, “Gingrich is repeating a rumor that was strongly denied by Israeli ambassador to the United States,” and the NJDC issued a statement:

Once again in tonight’s Florida GOP debate, former Speaker Newt Gingrich has simply fabricated recent events surrounding the U.S.-Israel relationship while discussing the postponement of a planned joint military exercise between our two countries—all in a deeply unfortunate ploy to smear President Barack Obama’s outstanding pro-Israel record.

Gingrich was seemingly trying to perpetuate the right wing’s false narrative that Obama has been a poor ally to Israel. But Gingrich’s complete disregard for the well established facts surrounding an event that happened less than two weeks ago illustrates the depths that his campaign will sink to smear Obama as hostile to the Jewish state.

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.

Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren gave a defense of Israeli policies in the Washington Post this morning. Oren’s op-ed came off as extraordinarily defensive, the upshot of the piece being that “Israel, in fact, is significantly less isolated than at many times in its history.” Nonetheless, Oren offered a sort of even-if-we-were-isolated defense of Israel: “Isolation, of course, is not automatically symptomatic of bad policies.”

One such “bad polic(y),” as considered by the U.S. government and international law, is the settlement project whereby Israelis move into Palestinian territories with the full backing of (and sometimes financial subsidies from) the state. On the same day when Israel announced (for the first time since 1997) the construction of an entirely new settlement outside Jerusalem, Oren wrote in defense of the broader project by noting that the settlement issue was not at the heart of the wider Arab-Israeli conflict or the Israeli-Palestinian one:

The settlements are not the core of the conflict… As [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas wrote in the New York Times in May, the Palestinian attempt to declare a state without making peace with Israel was about “internationalization of the conflict…to pursue claims against Israel” in the United Nations, not about settlements.

The link in the Abbas quote comes from Oren’s article (as printed on the Washington Post website) and goes to Abbas’ May op-ed in the New York Times. You’d think that since either Oren or Washington Post editors must’ve sought out the link and placed it in the article, someone would have bothered to read the Palestinian leader’s original piece. In it, they would have seen Abbas explicitly state that one of the reasons he would press forward with the Palestinian bid for U.N. recognition was the failure of Israel (or American pressure on Israel) to halt settlement expansion:

We go to the United Nations now to secure the right to live free in the remaining 22 percent of our historic homeland because we have been negotiating with the State of Israel for 20 years without coming any closer to realizing a state of our own. We cannot wait indefinitely while Israel continues to send more settlers to the occupied West Bank and denies Palestinians access to most of our land and holy places, particularly in Jerusalem. Neither political pressure nor promises of rewards by the United States have stopped Israel’s settlement program.

Oren is more than entitled to his opinions about the relative isolation of Israel or the international importance of its ongoing settlement project, but he’s not entitled to present falsehoods about a piece of writing in the public record. And it’s becoming something of a pattern: He’s played fast and loose with the facts before in the pages of the Washington Post.

When I interviewed Washington Post opinion page editor Fred Hiatt last year (for a separate article), he told me that the news pages and the opinion pages adhere to the same standards for errors. “When we make mistakes, we aim to correct them as quickly as possible. That applies to everyone,” he wrote in an e-mail. (Hiatt did not respond to an inquiry for this article by press time.) If that’s the case, the Post should apologize to Abbas for allowing this blatant misrepresentation of his explicitly-stated views, and append an official correction to Oren’s op-ed.

Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas in a New York Times op-ed back in May said part of the reason the Palestinians are seeking full U.N. membership is that they’ve lost faith in the negotiations toward a two-state solution. “Negotiations remain our first option, but due to their failure we are now compelled to turn to the international community to assist us,” he wrote. A main obstacle to negotiations is the continuation of Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank. In an interview with Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren this weekend on CNN, host Candy Crowley wondered why the Israelis don’t “just stop the settlements and come to the table.” Oren responded:

OREN: Well, we’ve stopped the settlements. We’ve stopped the settlements for ten months and the Palestinians didn’t come to the table. We’re willing to extend that for another three months. And the Obama administration determined that they still weren’t going to come to the table, the Palestinians.

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Oren is right. The Israelis did initiate a temporary 10-month settlement freeze which expired nearly one year ago. However, Oren is wrong to say “the Palestinians didn’t come to the table.” Months after the settlement freeze took effect, the Israelis and Palestinians agreed to start direct talks, which began in early September, 2010 in Washington and continued until the Palestinians ended the negotiations after the Israel’s settlement freeze expired weeks later.

In order to keep the direct negotiations alive, President Obama proposed a two-month freeze extension in return for U.S. concessions, including military aid and support for an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley after the Palestinians establish their state. The Palestinians wanted a renewed settlement moratorium to include building in East Jerusalem, which was excluded from the original moratorium. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state in return for the extended settlement freeze, an offer the Palestinians declined.

Why would the Palestinians decline? “Palestinian leaders worry about the ways in which this could prejudice some key final-status issues, notably refugees,” wrote American Task Force on Palestine senior research fellow Hussien Ibish. “Moreover,” Ibish adds, “Palestinians are concerned that recognizing Israel as a Jewish state might be seen as endorsing discrimination against the Palestinian minority in Israel, which is approximately 20 percent of the population.”

Israeli settlements in the West Bank have expanded 660 percent since the settlement freeze expired and since then, there has been “nearly 2 times more construction in the settlements than in Israel.”