Holding an Elmo doll, Ellison argued for continuing U.S. funding of the popular children’s show:

This guy taught us our 123’s, but he also taught us tolerance and understanding.

For the past several years, he’s been doing the same for children in the Palestinian Territories. Because of Sesame Street in Palestine, Palestinian kids grow up with the same positive role models that we did.

But with the freeze on Palestinian aid funds, Sesame Street went off the air and Hamas children’s programming faces less competition. Ellison warned:

Now, Palestinian kids are left watching Farfour – this mouse – who is the main character on a Hamas TV show for children. Instead of tolerance and understanding, Farfour promotes violence and anti-Semitism.

Watch it:

Since October, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) has held up $190 million in Palestinian aid. The decision to freeze aid came after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sought U.N. recognition for an independent Palestinian state. “By providing the Palestinians with $2.5 billion over the last 5 years, the U.S. has only rewarded and reinforced their bad behavior,” Ros-Lehtinen said.

J Street, the “Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace” organization, supports unfreezing Palestinian aid, issued a statement last week calling on Ros-Lehtinen to “Lift the remaining holds on Palestinian aid — don’t punish Palestinian children with political posturing.”

An article published today by Politico’s Ben Smith charges that Center for American Progress bloggers are at the heart of an “Israel rift” in the “Democratic ranks.” While we welcome the discussion, the article misrepresents our views by cherrypicking a few posts from over 300 we’ve written this year on Iran and the Middle East. In the process, Smith makes a number of mistakes. We take this as an opportunity to clarify our positions on Iran and call attention to the article’s errors.

Our view in favor of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the consensus view of administrations of both parties dating back to President Clinton. Our position is based on our strong belief that it is in the national security interests of the United States to achieve a resolution to this conflict. Politico relies on sources who claim our work is “anti-Israel” and “borderline anti-Semitic.” We categorically reject and are offended by the idea that any of our work is anti-Semitic, unless one believes the Middle East peace plan itself and ensuring Israel’s long term security by securing its neighborhood is anti-Semitic.

Iran’s nuclear program is a strong point of concern for us, the U.S., and its allies. CAP’s view is that the multilateral sanctions framework engineered by the Obama administration is an important tool in pressuring Iran to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) requirements. While we take nothing off the table, we do not believe there is any evidence that a military strike would achieve those goals, a view shared by America’s top military officials. Furthermore, we will continue to push back against the overheated rhetoric that regularly throws around calls for full scale war with Iran because such activity has an impact in the real world. Indeed, it is our belief that conservative sabre rattling not only undermines American diplomacy but also emboldens hardliners in Iran and strengthens their push for nuclear weapons.

Therefore, the best policy to weaken Iran’s push for nuclear weapons rests on diplomacy — not a military strategy. So we believe it is critically important for assertions made on policy towards Iran and elsewhere in the region be subject to careful scrutiny with the goal of ensuring that U.S. policy will be as effective as possible in limiting threats posed by Iran.

Politico also misrepresents a number of our writings on Iran. The article states:

ThinkProgress National Security reporter Eli Clifton took issue with a Quinnipiac University poll that made reference to Iran’s “nuclear program.” The belief that such a program exists undergirds the Obama administration’s drive for sanctions, and was recently bolstered by a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which wrote of “increasing” concerns, though not definitive evidence.

It is a widely accepted fact that Iran has a nuclear program but Eli’s post on the Quinnipiac poll took issue with the pollsters’ reference to the existence of “Iran’s nuclear weapons program” in polling questions. The pollsters’ assumption that a nuclear weapons program exists, a determination that neither the IAEA nor the White House has made, may have impacted the poll’s outcome. Politico, by conflating the Iranian “nuclear program” and alleged “nuclear weapons program,” is making the same mistake we were trying to highlight.

The article also asserts:

ThinkProgress also scrambled to call into question an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Saudi diplomats in the United States.

This we find very odd. Practically the entire U.S. foreign policy establishment reacted with skepticism to the bizarre and amateurish details of this plot. Eli’s post pointed to the leap to judgment made by a number of hawkish think tanks using the allegations to justify military action against Iran. Urging policymakers to wait for the conclusion of the investigation is not “call[ing] into question” the details of the plot. It is an observation that the rule of law should be respected and that all suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

And in the very next paragraph after quoting Eli’s post on the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, Politico gave the false impression that we were blaming the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) for the rush to judgment:

The villain: AIPAC. “It would appear that AIPAC is now using the same escalating measures against Iran that were used before the invasion of Iraq,” Clifton wrote in August.

AIPAC is not mentioned in Eli’s post about the assassination plot nor have we suggested that AIPAC bears any responsibility for rush to judgment on the plot, nor the right-wing calls to attack Iran because of it.

Politico’s article inaccurately portrays our positions as: anti-Israel; denying the seriousness of the charges in the alleged assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador; and denying the existence of an Iranian nuclear program. None of these positions are reflected in any posts by CAP bloggers.

State Dept. spokesperson Victoria Nuland

The questioning built off Nuland’s introductory remarks that the vote to give Palestine a seat at UNESCO was “regrettable, premature, and undermines our shared goal of a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in the Middle East.” The vote was a landslide, with only 13 other countries out of 172 UNESCO members voting against the Palestinians, leading AP reporter Matt Lee to wonder why such an overwhelming number didn’t vote with the U.S. when, as the U.S. posited, the outcome ran contra a “shared goal.”

Lee asked Nuland about what exactly was so “detrimental” about Palestinian UNESCO membership — other than Israeli discontent and triggering the U.S. law to cut off funds — and she responded that it “could exacerbate the environment” in which the U.S. is trying to bring parties together for talks. Lee then dug for more specific consequences:

LEE: How exactly does it exacerbate the environment if it changes nothing on the ground, unlike say, construction of settlements? It changes nothing on the ground. It gives Palestine membership in UNESCO, which is a body that the U.S. didn’t — was so unconcerned about for many years that it just wasn’t even a member.

NULAND: Well, I think you know that this Administration is committed to UNESCO, rejoined UNESCO, wants to see UNESCO’s work go forward –

LEE: Well, actually, it was the last Administration that rejoined UNESCO, not this one. But the – I need to have some kind of clarity on how this undermines the peace process other than the fact that it upsets Israel.

NULAND: Again, we are trying to get both of these parties back to the table. That’s what we’ve been doing all along… So, in that context, we have been trying to improve the relationship between these parties, improve the environment between them, and we are concerned that we exacerbate tensions with this, and it makes it harder to get the parties back to the table.

Watch the video:

Lee then went on, noting that the parties have not been in talks, to ask rhetorically: “So how can things get worse than they already are?” (HT: SM Palestine)

But with the Palestinians primed to work their way into other U.N. agencies, the issue could become a much larger one, potentially affecting organizations crucial to international development and, perhaps, even nuclear non-proliferation. Foreign Policy’s Colum Lynch addressed the topic in a piece today where he raised the potential defunding of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He quoted neoconservative American Enterprise Institute vice president for foreign and defense policy studies Danielle Pletka expressing support for the law prohibiting funding while acknowledging that holding back IAEA resources is a huge price to pay for attempting to block a relatively minor Palestinian gain:

[I]t would be very unfortunate if we were required by law to do to deny money to the International Atomic Energy Agency. [T]here are consequences to playing fast and loose, even in the international community. This is, at best, a supremely political quest by the Palestinians.

Opponents of the Palestinian U.N. bid seem to always dismiss it as a merely “political” exercise, all the while bemoaning the far reaching consequences of the power that the Palestinians stand to gain from recognition by the General Assembly or individual U.N. agencies — something that indicates they are more opposed to a Palestinian state than simply its out-of-turn recognition. That seems to be the case here, where Pletka is prepared to forsake one of the most effective U.N. agencies — one which works on the crucial global security issue of non-proliferation.

Indeed, when it comes to understand and halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions — something that Pletka’s ostensibly been working toward for a long time — the IAEA has proved an indispensable resource.

At a recent Atlantic Council panel, former top CIA analyst and Georgetown professor Paul Pillar noted just how important the IAEA was for gaining access to good information about Iran’s nuclear program:

[T]he single best source of information about programs of this sort – this was true of Iraq, it’s true of Iran – is an international inspections regime.

And in the case of Iraq, the flow of information was very good when we had it. It was suddenly a lot worse when we didn’t, whether it was because Iraq kicked out the inspectors, or as it happened closer to the war, when the U.S. kicked out the inspectors.

So my concluding observation would be, if we want to try to increase our collective confidence about what we can say about this particular program in Iran, the best way to do that would be to strive for a more inclusive and more extensive intentional inspections regime.

But perhaps less reliable information about Iran’s nuclear program would be a boon to Pletka because she has things on her mind other than collecting good intelligence about Iran’s nuclear program.

Early in his remarks, Huntsman commented that “we saw the Palestinians make an end-run around the American led peace process because they lost confidence in it and in our ability to lead.” Indeed the Palestinian attempt to seek statehood through the U.N. was widely interpreted as a vote of no confidence in both the U.S.’ led peace process and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sincerity as a negotiating partner.

But 25 minutes later, in a response to a question about Israeli settlement expansion, Huntsman offered a very different vision of the U.S. role in the region, saying:

I think we must recognize that in a region of change, now might not be the time for negotiations. We have to listen, I think, very carefully to what leadership in Israel has to say about the timing issue.

And, if now is not the time, I don’t think we can force the process, but what we can do during this time of uncertainty is to stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel and remind the world what it means to be a friend and ally of the United States. This we have not done in a very long time and, so long as there is not any blue sky between United States and Israel, it doesn’t matter what plays out in the region.

Watch it:

How, exactly, Huntsman envisions regaining Palestinian confidence while declaring that “now might not be the time for negotiations” is an important question and one with no obvious answer. Huntsman’s expertise, both professionally and as a diplomat, have focused on East Asia but his lack of urgency in resolving the Middle East conflict flies in the face of positions taken by senior military leadership and the State Department. While establishing credentials as a “pro-Israel” politician has become more important than ever, Huntsman’s deference to “what leadership in Israel has to say about the timing issue” could come at the expense of U.S. national security interests and further tarnish the respect for U.S. leadership which Huntsman aims to restore.

This is a critical time. This is no time to withhold those funds, at a point in time where we are urging the Palestinians and Israelis to sit down and negotiate a peace agreement.

Americans for Peace Now (APN) breaks down the blocked funding and concludes that while $200 million in 2011 funding has already been spent, the blockage will hold up $192 million in funds for humanitarian programs for Palestinian residents in the West Bank and Gaza. These programs include USAID projects and other development assistance programs which have long been kept completely separate from aid to the PA. In addition to the humanitarian aid, $150 million in funding for security assistance to the PA will be withheld.

CAP’s Peter Juul reported last week that Israeli and American officials expressed “deep concern” about defunding the PA:

Both Israelis and Americans stated that a cut off of U.S. aid or Israeli tax transfers could lead to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority itself. For their part, Israelis viewed an aid cutoff as a threat to Israeli security given the near-certain likelihood that such a move would lead to the breakdown of security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority’s security forces. 

The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Anthony H. Cordesman warned that cutting military aid to the PA could badly damage Palestinian and Israeli security interests. And even neoconservative pro-Israel hawks have voiced opposition to holding up the funding. Responding to the aid blockage, former Bush administration Middle East adviser Elliot Abrams told a Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Hudson Institute conference yesterday that cutting off aid to the PA could result in a collapse of the government in the West Bank.

The blockage in aid has already resulted in the elimination of 50 jobs, according to Palestinian economics minister Hassan Abu Libdeh. The PA has twice failed to pay employees on time in recent months, raising tensions in the West Bank as spending on public works and civil servant salaries become increasingly unpredictable. Concerns about the cutoff in funding go beyond the West Bank and Gaza as American and Israeli officials are growing increasingly vocal with their warnings that a cutoff of assistance could lead to a breakdown in security cooperation with the PA and undermine attempts to build up the West Bank economy.

But in a somewhat surprising turn, former Vice President Dick Cheney dismissed such measures. When Pajamas Media asked whether he agreed that defunding the U.N. was warranted in light of the Palestinian Authority’s effort, Cheney said “I don’t think that’s necessarily the right response”:

CHENEY: I’ve never been a great fan of the United Nations over the years…I’ve felt that they didn’t exercise they’re authority they way they might. But in terms of the basic notion that we are going to defund the U.N., I haven’t given it any thought. People get severely agitated about what’s going on at the United Nations, they used to up in Congress….There are a lot of Americans who look askance at the United Nations and probably would in a heart beat vote for defunding. I don’t think that’s necessarily the right response here. We’ll see what happens.

Watch it:

There’s good reason to question the move. As Center for American Progress’s Sarah Margon notes, such bills set “a dramatic precedent that far exceeds previous anti-U.N. initiatives.” Not only would it force the U.N. to adopt a voluntary budget model, it would “end funding for Palestinian refugees, restrict the use of U.S. funds to the goals outlined by Congress, and stop U.S. contributions to U.N. peacekeeping operations” until reforms are made.

What’s more, these measures ignore the U.N’s recent successes in “galvanizing international action” that aligns with U.S. interests — be it in Libya, Syria, or Iran. Along with providing a more cost effective way to face and coordinate on global challenges, Margonn also notes that U.N. participation “enhance[s] our ability to promote our agenda by leveraging key actors.”

Nonetheless, right-wing conservatives seem wedded to their dogmatic campaign against the U.N. As GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich summed up last night, any U.N. action that may work against U.S. interests sparks their question, “Why are you giving them anything?”

Clinton, citing his own background as a Southern Baptist, said that American evangelical Christians like Perry often believe that the West Bank belongs to the Jewish state of Israel.

Clinton, who referred to the West Bank several times by its bibilical name Judea and Samaria (the name also used by Israel’s settler movement), noted that Christian evangelicals are often more hardline on these issues than are most Israelis:

I also believe that Rick Perry — look, that’s my culture. I’m from next door. There is an enormous resevoir of support for Israel in the Christian evangelical community. And a lot of them believe, as some of the more militant settler groups do, that God meant for all of Judea and Samaria to be in the hands of Israel, and that Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak, when he was prime minister, and all the — and Shimon Peres and everybody that’s signed all these peace agreements have violated the biblical mandate by wanting to give the West Bank to the Palestinian State. [...]

That’s what they believe: that Judea and Samaria is a what God intended to be Israel. So, those Congressmen that were over there working on Netanyahu during the break, they’re more militant than the Israelis are — or than a lot of them. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if Rick Perry really believes that. I’m sure there are hundreds of thousands of people that never miss church on Sunday in Texas who believe that.

Earlier in the interview, Clinton expanded on his view of the congressional delegations that traveled to Israel last month sponsored by a group with close links to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the flagship of the Israel lobby in Washington. A week after a Democratic delegation, a Republican delegation followed. The 55-member GOP trip was the largest ever to go to the Jewish state. Clinton said their message was that Israel could continue to occupy the West Bank indefinitely if a Republican was able to take the White House:

[Perry's statement] was good politics and it was sort of like the trip that 70 — I think there were 70 [sic] Republican House members that went to Israel during the break and basically said, “You guys do whatever you want. Keep the West Bank. We’re comin’ back. We’ll have the White House and the Congress and then we’ll let you do whatever you want.” I believe that’s essentially what was going on.

Watch the video of the Clinton interview:

Michael Oren, Israeli Ambassador To The U.S.

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.

Watch it:

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.”

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.

Perry receives an award from the Texas-Israel Chamber of Commerce in 2007

On Friday, Perry dropped two op-eds — well, actually, he dropped the same op-ed twice, in the Wall Street Journal and Israel’s Jerusalem Post — attacking President Obama’s robust support for the Jewish state as insufficiently pro-Israel. That the piece’s themes are picked straight from neoconservative talking points and appear in neocon op-ed pages and that neocons love it is no surprise: Perry’s reportedly been getting foreign policy advice from the “stupidest guy on the face of the earth” and arch-neocon Doug Feith, whose book featured a Mideast map that did not distinguish between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

But Perry, unlike some of the evangelical Christian figures he appeared beside at the Response rally, seemed to be open, in a Time magazine interview this week at least, to the idea of negotiations toward a two-state solution.

Perry’s Israel op-ed, though, hit a note that’s become a neocon calling card: cherry-picking information to make a case. In its opening paragraph, and perhaps most head-scratch-inducing moment, Perry wrote:

Historian T.R. Fehrenbach once observed that my home state of Texas and Israel share the experience of “civilized men and women thrown into new and harsh conditions, beset by enemies.”

Journalist Max Blumenthal picked up on the Fehrenbach reference, and noted its strangeness because of the historian’s work, including writing “an authoritative book on the ethnic cleansing of the Comanche Indians by the Anglo settlers of Texas.” Blumenthal pulled Fehrenbach’s “Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans” from his shelf and checked out Perry’s reference. The full quote, which Perry cherry-picked, reads:

The Texan’s attitudes, his inherent chauvinism and the seeds of his belligerence, sprouted from his conscious effort to take and hold his land. It was the reaction of essentially civilized men and women thrown into new and harsh conditions, beset by enemies they despised. The closest 20th-century counterpart is the State of Israel, born in blood in another primordial land.

Blumenthal thinks the Texas-Israel comparison is still valid, but with almost the opposite meaning that Perry’s cherry-picked quote conveyed:

Fehrenbach would have agreed with Perry that Texas shared values with Israel. But unlike Perry, he thought that those values were all the wrong ones: hatred of the other, a reliance on violence to seize land, and a legacy of ethnic cleansing. According to Fehrenbach, what Israel did to the Palestinians in 1947 and ‘48 — and continues to do — is analogous to the Texans’ treatment of the Comanches and Mexicans during the 19th century.

With neoconservatives making apologia for evicting Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem, perhaps Perry was keenly aware of the full Fehrenbach quote and changed it for a wider audience while trying to establish closeness to the neoconservative movement.

Map Photo Courtesy of Peace Now

Tobin characterizes my view as “the dustup over Maen Areikat’s remarks is just a neocon canard.” Untrue. Not only did I criticize Areikat’s comments, as “troubling,” (and the previous day as “ridiculous”) I actually located and linked to the original source of the comments. I think the concern over the remarks is entirely warranted and legitimate (which is why it’s good to see the Palestinians clarifying today that “The future Palestinian state will be open to all its citizens, regardless of their religion.”) The canard, which we can almost certainly expect Tobin and others to keep repeating, is the claim that the Palestinian leadership is actively planning a “Judenrein” state.

Responding to my comparison between Areikat’s comments and Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s proposed plan to transfer Palestinian Israelis out of the country, Tobin argues that, “Areikat’s views are not, as could be said of the opinions of radical right Israeli settlers or even the more mainstream hard line views of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the opinions of a minority faction.”

Leaving aside the fact that Lieberman is himself a right-wing Israeli settler, Tobin’s argument that a PLO diplomat speaks for all Palestinians, while Israel’s foreign minister — that is, the boss of all of Israel’s diplomats — represents only “the opinions of a minority faction” is not one I find convincing.

Tobin takes serous issue, however, with my pointing out the hypocrisy of Areikat’s critics who’ve never had anything bad to say about Israel’s ongoing efforts to seize Palestinian property (the latest evidence of which we have this morning):

[F]or Duss to compare a promise to evict all Jews from a Palestinian state to property disputes in Jerusalem (in which some Arabs lost court cases in which Jews held the title to the land or houses in question) is an absurdity. Whether or not you believe Palestinians who have squatted on other people’s property in Jerusalem ought not to be forced to move, to compare Israel’s record on this with a Judenrein Palestine makes no sense. Duss seems to forget Israeli Arabs have full citizenship rights, serve in the Knesset and have redress to independent courts.

For a response to this, I spoke to Danny Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer with the organization Terrestrial Jerusalem, and considered one of the world’s leading experts on Israeli policy in Jerusalem. “Sure, the courts almost always rule in favor of the settlers,” Seidemann said, “because the law discriminates. Under Israeli law, Jews who lost property in East Jerusalem [in] 1948 may recover their properties. The Palestinians there are ‘squatters’. Those Palestinians who lost property in West Jerusalem [in 1948] may NOT recover their properties. The Israelis who live in these are ‘homeowners’, not ‘squatters’.”

Seidemann also corrected Tobin on the status of Jerusalem’s Palestinians. Apart from about 13,000 out of about 290,000 total, Seidemann said, “The Palestinians of East Jerusalem are not ‘full citizens’ of Israel, but rather permanent residents. They may not vote in national elections, get elected to the Knesset, serve as judges, become mayor or get an Israeli passport.”

As Israeli human rights groups like B’Tselem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and Ir Amim have rigorously documented, there exists in Israel a system of laws designed specifically to divest Palestinians of their property and put it under Jewish control. A 2009 European Union report “accused both the Israeli government and the Jerusalem municipality of working deliberately to alter the city’s demographic balance and sever East Jerusalem from the West Bank.” If that sounds ugly, that’s because it is ugly, for none more than the Palestinian families who suffer under it.

It’s quite true that this is not the same as planning a “Judenrein” Palestine, but it is nevertheless incredibly inhumane, not to mention entirely illegal under international human rights law. It’s also a highly provocative attempt to predetermine Jerusalem’s future status, which is why both the United States and the United Nations have condemned such evictions. But, for the committed apologist, all of this can be dismissed as merely a “property dispute.”

State Spokesperson Mark Toner

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Wednesday the U.S. continues to see any kind of effort by the Palestinians at the U.N. gathering in New York as “counterproductive.”

He said a vote for Palestinian statehood is an “anti-Israel vote.”

But at the press briefing, Toner was asked repeatedly whether or not the U.S. considered voting for the Palestinian statehood recognition resolution to be “anti-Israel.” He failed to respond several times, but then said it was “not a zero-sum game.” Pressed on it, Toner seemed to say that the administration did not, in fact, consider voting for the resolution to be “anti-Israel.”

The relevant portion of the briefing transcript says:

QUESTION: But do – I understand that, but do you think that a vote for recognition of Palestine as a state is an anti-Israel vote?

MR. TONER: And I will –

QUESTION: Is this – in other words, is this, in fact, a zero-sum game?

MR. TONER: It’s not a zero-sum game. It’s – what it is is it’s not conducive to –

QUESTION: Then the Administration does not agree that it is an anti-Israel –

MR. TONER: It is not – no. What I’m saying is this is not going to lead to progress in peace negotiations, direct negotiations. And so we believe it’s counterproductive, that it’s not in the interest of either of the parties, and our goal, therefore, remains in getting them back to the – into negotiations, and that’s what we’re pursuing on the ground in Tel Aviv.

QUESTION: Okay. But you don’t see this vote – you don’t see a country voting in favor of a Palestinian resolution to be anti-Israel?

MR. TONER: Again, I’m not going to characterize what a –

QUESTION: Well, let me get to the reason why I’m asking the question…

Watch the video of the whole exchange here:

While it’s not precisely clear that Toner’s remark that “It is not – no” was a response to the reporter’s question, it’s absolutely clear that at no point does Toner say that a vote for the Palestinian initiative is “anti-Israel.” He repeatedly refused to answer the question. By saying the situation did not constitute “zero-sum game,” Toner implied that supporting the Palestinian position was not by default “anti-Israel.” Toner then made a statement suggesting that, no, the administration did not view voting for the Palestinian resolution as anti-Israel.

Fox News should correct its report and apologize to Toner for so egregiously misquoting him.

PLO Ambassador Maen Areikat

What appears to have people exercised is not anything Areikat said recently, but comments he made in a Tablet magazine interview a year ago, in which he said Jews who “fall under the jurisdiction of a Palestinian state” would have to be transferred.

AREIKAT: I think this is a very necessary step, before we can allow the two states to somehow develop their separate national identities, and then maybe open up the doors for all kinds of cultural, social, political, economic exchanges, that freedom of movement of both citizens of Israelis and Palestinians from one area to another. You know you have to think of the day after.

Despite the fact that Areikat described these as his personal views (and despite, or maybe because of, the fact that they resemble the views of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman), they’re still pretty troubling. Obviously, the goal of U.S. policy should be a Palestinian state where people of all faiths can live and freely practice.

In a follow-up interview with the Huffington Post’s Josh Hersh, Areikat’s distanced himself from the remarks. “Under no circumstances was I saying that no Jews can be in Palestine,” Areikat told Hersh. “What a statement that would be for me to make! I never said that, and I never meant to say such a thing. This is not a religious conflict, and we want to establish a secular state.”

In another piece, the Palestinian Authority’s Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al Habash told Maan News, “The Palestinian state will a be a civilized state in which all faiths will live. The attempt of media outlets to play games with statements hostile to Jews has a purely political goal. The PA and its ambassador in Washington have a clear position on the issue and do not need to play games with words.”

As for the usual neocon outlets pushing the talking point that the Palestinian Authority envisions a “Judenrein” Palestine, it’s worth noting that, not only do any of these characters ever have anything critical to say about Israel’s policies of expropriation of Palestinian property and eviction of Palestinian families in places like Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, and elsewhere in the West Bank, they stood foursquare behind those policies when the Obama administration criticized them. Apparently, kicking people out of their homes and seizing their property is only bad when the Palestinians might do it in the future, not when Israelis are actually doing it right now.

Cross-posted from Middle East Progress.