Former AIPAC spokesman Josh Block, now affiliated with the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) and the Truman National Security Project, was quoted in a Politico article last week accusing bloggers here at the Center for American Progress of writing “borderline anti-Semitic stuff.” One day later, Salon reported that in an opposition research document Block pushed to neoconservative journalists shortly before the Politico article was published, Block said CAP bloggers engage in the “vilification…of Jews” and that ThinkProgress’s work constitutes “the words of anti-Semites.” Block subsequently denied that he had made these charges and has yet to issue an apology (we have categorically rejected these accusations).

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent reports today that PPI and the Truman Project “are privately considering a formal break with Block”:

PPI head Will Marshall privately told Block that the think tank would sever ties with Block if he didn’t retract the charges detailed in Salon, according to a source familiar with the discussions. Block subsequently offered Politico a statement on the charges, claiming he had never accused people at CAP in particular of anti-Semitism, but not walking back or apologizing for the gist of what was reported in the Salon piece. It’s still unclear how PPI — which declined to comment — will proceed at this point.

Meanwhile, at Truman, top officials privately debated via email whether to cut ties with Block after the Salon story broke, a source says. They had already been unhappy with Block’s attacks on critics of Israel, and the Salon piece exacerbated tensions, I’m told.

“Personal attacks have no place in our community,” Truman spokesman Dave Solimini tells me. “That agreement is unbreakable. The trust built among members of the truman community is the issue here. Personal attacks on members of our community, like calling them anti-Semitic, would cross that line.”

As Sargent notes, ThinkProgress reported last week that Block’s third professional association had already criticized Block’s smears of CAP. “Impugning motives of people at the Center [for American Progress] and impugning [that] those motives are driven by anti-Semitism is, in my opinion, wrong,” Block’s business partner and former special counsel to President Bill Clinton Lanny Davis said.

Looking over the document on me and some of my colleagues that, as Salon’s Justin Elliot revealed this week, former AIPAC spokesman Josh Block, now listed as a Senior Fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, has been sending around under the pretense that it exposes us as being, in his words, “on the side of anti-U.S., anti-Israel, and anti-Western forces,” one has to be impressed at the effort that Block has put into attributing the darkest possible motives to work that, taken on its own and without his misleading editorializing, is not particularly controversial. Yes, I think a strike on Iran would be hugely destabilizing, as does former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, and that overly aggressive unilateral U.S. sanctions could undermine more effective multilateral sanctions. Yes, I think Turkey is a very important U.S. partner, and more effort should be put toward resolving its rift with Israel, which is bad for all three countries. Yes, I think the continuing growth of Israeli settlements diminishes the prospects of a negotiated peace, as does Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni, as has every U.S. administration since 1968. It’s ridiculous to characterize these views as either anti-U.S. or anti-Israel.

People can make up their own minds, and I’m happy to defend anything I’ve written, but there are few particularly misleading items in the now-public document that I’d like to address.

Josh writes that I “seem ideologically and personally committed to mainstreaming the idea that Israel is a strategic drag on the United States.” As evidence, he cites a June 2010 post in which I note recent statements from Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former Israeli Mossad Chief Meir Dagan warning of Israel becoming a strategic burden on the United States. Here’s the quote from me he uses:

Like Cordesman (for whom, full disclosure, I interned years ago) I’ve always been skeptical of claims about the strategic benefits of the U.S.-Israel partnership. As Cordesman writes, “At the best of times,” Israel “provides some intelligence, some minor advances in military technology, and a potential source of stabilizing military power.”

And here’s the rest:

But I’m also a strong believer in the moral and ethical basis of the U.S.-Israel relationship, in support for Israel as a fellow democracy — an imperfect one, sure, just as the U.S. was and still is in many ways — and as a country that shares many of our values, and holds enormous spiritual significance for many Americans.

Whether one supports or opposes the current U.S.-Israel relationship, on whatever basis, the fact is that the U.S. is deeply implicated in what Israel does. But supporting the relationship on the basis of values means recognizing that the U.S. has a unique responsibility to work toward halting Israel’s violations of those values, most obviously its four decade-old occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and creation of illegal settlements throughout occupied territory, rather than providing diplomatic cover for them. One can quibble with the manner in which President Obama has pursued the settlement issue, but the fact that he has made it such a central element of his approach to Israel shows how seriously he takes the relationship, and how he understands the threat that the settlements represent to Israel’s future. Though no two countries’ interests are perfectly aligned, I think that U.S. and Israeli interests in resolving the conflict, seeing Israel integrated into the region (and allowing the region to benefit from Israel’s vibrant culture and enormous economic accomplishments) are about as closely aligned as such interests get.

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The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin this week in two separate posts smeared CAP and its bloggers as “anti-Semitic” and “anti-Israel.” In her first post highlighting a recent Politico piece — which was originally titled “Liberal think tank harbors Israel haters” but subsequently changed to “Uncovering the anti-Israel enablers” — Rubin, without offering any evidence, said our “views are not merely anti-Israel, they are anti-Semitic” and that our writing is “fiction for Israel haters.” Rubin posted a follow-up story the next day, noting Progressive Policy Institute senior fellow Josh Block’s role in it and added, again without offering any evidence, that CAP bloggers promote “out-and-out anti-Semitic hate speech”:

Block is a self-identified Democratic activist whose pro-Israel credentials are well known. He’s actively worked for years to elect scores of Democrats. Of course he wants the anti-Israel left to be exposed. Of course he wants pro-Israel Democrats on record as distancing themselves from the CAP-housed bloggers who peddle in anti-Israel attacks and out-and-out anti-Semitic hate speech.

Again, Rubin offered no proof of these charges. But she promoted Block’s claim that “the European Union’s accepted definition of anti-Semitic hate speech applies to much of the CAP bloggers’ rhetoric, such as holding Israel to a dual standard while demonizing the Jewish state.” The “accepted definition” she links to is an undated EU Military Committee “working definition of antisemitism,” but Rubin presented no direct quotes from any ThinkProgress posts that meet any of the criteria the EU document listed.

We categorically reject these accusations. We don’t endorse the term “Israel firsters” or demonize the Jewish state on ThinkProgress. We are not anti-Semitic and this blog regularly promotes a strong relationship with Israel. Further, there is no anti-Semitic or anti-Israel “hate speech” written anywhere on this blog. We would never condone such language or beliefs, and in fact, we have made efforts to fight individuals who do engage in anti-Semitic discourse. For example, earlier this year, we reported that Jewish groups were “deeply concerned” that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin had used the anti-Semitic term “blood libel” to describe criticism by her detractors.

Washington Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton criticized Rubin last month for promoting a “brand of incendiary rhetoric [that] has gained too much purchase on the landscape of American politics.” Pexton added that the rhetoric Rubin promotes “pollutes our discourse and erodes the soil on which reasonable solutions and compromises can be built, whether at home or in the Middle East.”

The Washington Post should issue a correction to Rubin’s post. Please email, or tweet, politely asking that the Post correct Rubin’s article.

A Politico article yesterday on CAP’s Middle East posture cited Josh Block, who described CAP’s bloggers as writing “borderline anti-Semitic stuff.” In a leaked email to a right-wing listserv, Block, now senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, disclosed he had compiled thousands of words of opposition research on CAP and Media Matters bloggers, while urging neoconservative journalists to “amplify” the Politico article.

Block’s message as reported by Politico was made even more strongly in his email sent out to the right-wing journalist listserv. He wrote, “These are the words of anti-Semites, not Democratic political players,” adding, “This kind of anti-Israel sentiment is so fringe it’s support by CAP is outrageous.” Ironically, Block’s own personal business and political interests find him frequently on the fringes of the Democratic party and mainstream political dialogue in Washington.

Last year, upon his departure from AIPAC as a spokesperson for the organization, Block told Ben Smith: “There is an important debate taking place inside the Democratic Party and the progressive movement, and I’m relishing my return to the political, as well as the policy, conversation, politics with Israel-centric policies.” But when not pushing a hard-line on U.S.-Israel policy within the Democratic party, Block partners with Lanny Davis — who represented business interests backing the 2009 coup in Honduras — in a joint lobbying practice.

Block’s firm has proven itself as one of the go-to lobby shops in Washington for human rights abusers such as Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo and the the new Honduran government.

Block’s firm’s willingness to represent unpopular interests in Washington, for the right price, is further exemplified by their status as registered lobbyists for Agility DGS, a company suspended from government contracts after it was accused of defrauding the U.S. government as a contractor in Iraq.

Block’s business acumen and pursuit of the next payday raises the question of whose account Block was working on when he compiled the opposition research document on CAP and Media Matters bloggers.

Yesterday, Politico published an article written by Ben Smith purporting to highlight a divide on the left on Middle East policy. The story quoted sources — including former AIPAC spokesman Josh Block — saying that bloggers here at the Center for American Progress are “borderline anti-Semitic” and “anti-Israel.” In the process, Politico also cherry-picked a few posts out of hundreds ThinkProgress has written on Middle East issues to back up its case. Yet Politico misrepresented the posts in question and CAP’s wider Middle East positions.

Salon’s Justin Elliott reports today that Block sent out an email to a neoconservative journalist list-serv called “The Freedom Community” urging members to read and “amplify” Politico’s story, promoting it because in his view it shows that CAP bloggers are “anti-Israel” and vilify “pro-Israel Americans, Jews, Members of Congress, and pretty much anyone who thinks Iran with nuke is a problem, or supports a strong US-Israe [sic] relationship.” He said of our writing, “These are the words of anti-Semites, not Democratic political players.” Block also said in the email — without offering any evidence — that we engage in “hate speech.” (CAP and its affiliated bloggers are pro-Israel, support a strong U.S.-Israeli relationship, believe Iran with a nuclear weapon is a serious problem and do not vilify Jews). While it’s unclear who is on this list-serv, Jen Rubin at the Washington Post, Commentary and the Weekly Standard amplified the Politico article shortly after it was published.

Block also accompanied his email with an extensive 3,000 word opposition research document against ThinkProgress bloggers — which appears to have been completed on Nov. 8 — that contains a number of ad-hominem attacks against us without any evidence backing up those attacks. Instead, Block simply links to dozens of previous posts this blog has written on the Middle East. Some examples:

The CAP writers are not above smearing Democratic politicians and mainstream journalists for being Israel-firsters, for carrying AIPAC’s water, etc. But the personal attacks speak to personal unprofessionalism and borderline libel, while the substantive stuff exposes how far out of the mainstream CAP’s work has actually gotten.

Across everything, there’s a weird combination of sneering recklessness and smug childishness that underlies a lot of their rhetoric. On the recklessness side, there’s a degree to which they really don’t know how shrill they sound and how far off the reservation they’ve strayed. It’s almost as if, in talking to each other, it’s now just natural to talk about Jewish money in politics, about treasonous politicians, etc.

And on Twitter today, Ben Smith acknowledged that he accepted this research document before his article was published yesterday:

Salon’s Elliott notes that Block is a go-to for reporters looking for a right-wing view on the Middle East and that he now is a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute and also a partner in a lobbying and PR firm, Davis-Block. “It’s not clear,” Elliott adds, “whether Block is shopping the oppo trove on progressive bloggers as a personal project or as part of work for a client.”

By Ken Gude and Faiz Shakir

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.

Today, Politico ran an op-ed by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) blasting possible defense cuts that may take place following the recently passed debt deal. Hunter argued that defense spending isn’t a primary reason for our debt and warned that this may be dangerous for the country:

Defense spending is not the reason for our more than $14 trillion in national debt. Nor should it be identified as a primary revenue source to relieve the nation’s fiscal troubles. There is indeed room for efficiency — but cutting for the sake of cutting is a dangerous proposition.

It is plainly untrue to say that the Defense Department isn’t a major driver of our deficit. After all, defense spending makes up the bulk of the government’s discretionary budget.

While there is nothing wrong with Politico publishing a piece advocating against cutting the defense budget, the paper did make a major omission by failing to include a crucial fact: Hunter’s top campaign contributors all come from the defense industry. As campaign finance data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics shows, half of the top 20 corporate contributors to his campaign are defense contractors:

Politico and all other media outlets should disclose these conflicts of interest when discussing this issue. ThinkProgress asked Politico to comment, but we have yet to receive a response.