Douglas Bloomfield's blog

An Egyptian military delegation is in Washington this week with a wish list of weapons to buy with their $1.3 billion in annual U.S. aid while back in Cairo the generals running the government are blocking seven Americans from returning home, threatening them with criminal prosecution and harassing congressionally funded pro-democracy non-governmental organizations.

Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas have much in common.  Both are pure of heart, noble of purpose and free of blame. Each man wants nothing more than peace between Israelis and Palestinians and would have it were it not for the other one's intransigence.

"The Palestinians have no interest in entering peace talks.  I'm ready to travel now to Ramallah to start peace talks with Abu Mazen (Abbas) without preconditions," Netanyahu has said.

When Newt Gingrich was fined $300,000 by the House of Representatives in 1997 for unethical behavior and lying to investigators, the Speaker, now a multi-millionaire, said he didn't have the money.  Sen. Bob Dole came to his rescue in what was called the first time in history that a politician saved an air bag. 

Dole helped establish a $150,000 line of credit for Gingrich. Ultimately, Dole said, the Speaker got the money from other sources.

When a woman told former Sen. Rick Santorum at a Florida campaign appearance this week that Barack Obama is "an avowed Muslim" who is not legally the President, the Republican presidential hopeful didn't disagree. As if to reinforce her attack, he told her he's just as anxious "to get him out of the government." 

President Obama spent little time on foreign policy during his State of the Union Address but much of what he did have to say was very reassuring for Israel and its friends.

To strong applause from both sides of the aisle, he declared, "Our ironclad commitment - and I mean ironclad - to Israel's security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history."

With the red-hot Republican president contest moving to Florida this week, Democrats made a pre-emptive strike to shore up support among Jewish voters, particularly stressing President Obama's support for Israel.  Republicans are trying to make Israel a wedge issue among Jewish voters and contributors this year, especially in Florida with its large Jewish population.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, 41, Arizona's first Jewish congresswoman, will resign from the Congress this week to focus on her recovery from an assassination attempt at a constituent meeting early last year. Her battle to recover from serious brain injury has been heroic and inspirational.

A group of pro-Palestinian organizations calling themselves OccupyAIPAC is planning to bring hundreds of demonstrators for rallies at the pro-Israel lobby's annual policy conference in March 4-6 at the Washington Convention Center.

Some of the anti-AIPAC activists will try to register as delegates so they can disrupt the conference from the inside, according to their website.  Others may try to occupy AIPAC's headquarters at 251 H Street NW in Washington.

Is Newt Gingrich actually helping Mitt Romney by branding him a Massachusetts Moderate?

Not right now. 

The label is meant to be a curse among righter-than-though evangelical, Tea Party and other hardline conservative voters who all the GOP candidates are appealing to in the primaries. 

But that could change.

Richard Nixon's advice to Republicans was run to the right in the primaries and to the center in the general election.

UPDATE -- Andrew Adler, the owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times and author of a column calling for the assassination of President Obama by Israel, has resigned and is putting his newspaper up for sale, JTA reported.  The Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta acknowledged Adler's "public apology and remorse," but said "the damage done to the people of Israel, the global Jewis