It cannot be said enough: David Gregory has never met a Republican meme that he didn't embrace with full force. For a guy who doesn't believe it's his job to ask follow up questions to fact check a guest, he sure does love coming back and back again to a narrative that Republicans put out without context or veracity.

The intention to broker peace between Palestine and Israel has been US foreign policy goal #1 since the 1967 Six Day War. It is political suicide in this country to ever express anything less than unconditional loyalty to the Israeli government. And Barack Obama knows that. President Obama spoke last week on the Palestinian application for recognition of statehood at the UN in a speech that was praised by both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and extreme right winger Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman but to the consternation of the Palestinian people.

But Republicans deal outside of the reality that every body else in the world does. At the GOP Presidential debate, Romney, Perry and Santorum all eagerly tried to paint Obama as an indifferent ally to Israel. And that's all the authentication David Gregory needed to ask Netanyahu if he thought that Obama had thrown Israel under the bus...not once, not twice, but multiple times...to the point where Netanyahu had to call him on it:

GREGORY: You once said that Israel had no better friend in the White House than George W. Bush. Would you say the same about Barack Obama?

NETANYAHU: When did I say that?

GREGORY: 2002

NETANYAHU: They keep moving and adding new people.

GREGORY: George W. Bush and President Obama are good leaders in your mind? I’m asking a serious question. Prime Minister, you said America was behind you. This has been a relationship between your administration and this administration. Just this week, Mitt Romney said of Barack Obama he threw Israel under the bus. Do you disagree with those statements?

NETANYAHU: David, you are trying to throw me under the bus of American politics. I’m not going to be thrown there.

And it goes on and on...

Again, Netanyahu and Lieberman go out of their way to express their appreciation of Obama's support this week and what David Gregory really really needs to know is 'but do you like him as much as you liked GWB?' What are we, in high school?

David Gregory, you are a sad, pathetic excuse for a newsman.

Transcripts below the fold:

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Nothing ever really seems to come of these peace attempts, but talking openly about the Israeli settlements is new, and perhaps will stimulate some real progress:

During a wide-ranging news conference at the White House, Mr. Obama said that while the politics of extending the moratorium would be difficult for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, given his conservative government coalition, he had nonetheless asked Mr. Netanyahu to extend it when they met recently in Washington.

“What I’ve said to Prime Minister Netanyahu is that given, so far, the talks are moving forward in a constructive way, it makes sense to extend that moratorium,” Mr. Obama said, in remarks that took some administration officials by surprise.

Mr. Obama said he had also told Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, that he, too, had to make gestures to Israel to keep the peace talks going. The negotiations began last week in Washington.

“You’ve got to show the Israeli public that you are serious and constructive in these talks so that the politics for Prime Minister Netanyahu, if he were to extend the settlements moratorium, would be a little bit easier,” Mr. Obama said he had told Mr. Abbas.

Mr. Obama’s remarks on Friday were significant because the settlement construction moratorium, which is scheduled to expire Sept. 26, is looming as the first hurdle in the nascent peace talks. His comments surprised some administration officials because of a customary concern that the United States not appear to be pushing Israel.

One of the most important videos you've never seen is this one, in which Benjamin Netanyahu, 9 years ago -- thinking there is no record -- explains his actually strategy to inflict pain on the Palestinians. He also describes how easy it is to manipulate the US, and how he made sure that the Oslo Accords would mean nothing.

First he says that the plan for the Palestinians is to:

hit them hard. Not just one hit... but many painful [hits], so that the price will be unbearable. The price is not unbearable, now. A total assault on the Palestinian Authority. To bring them to a state of panic that everything is collapsing ... fear that everything will collapse... this is what we'll bring them to...

The woman Natanyahu is speaking to wonders if the world won't object to what Israel is doing to the occupied Palestinians (she uses the word occupiers herself. He says the world will say nothing, just that Israel is defending itself. As for the US...

“I know what America is. America is a thing that can be easily moved, moved in the right direction... Let's suppose that they [the Americans] will say something [i.e. to us Israelis] ... so they say it...” [i.e. so what?]

He then moves on to deal with the Oslo Accords. Under Oslo, Israel was to give back land in three phases. However, there was a loophole: if there were settlements or military bases, that land didn't have to be given back. So the question is, who defines what is a settlement or military site?

I received a letter – to me and to Arafat, at the same time ... which said that Israel, and only Israel, would be the one to define what those are, the location of those military sites and their size. Now, they did not want to give me that letter, so I did not give the Hebron agreement. I stopped the government meeting, I said: "I'm not signing." Only when the letter came, in the course of the meeting, to me and to Arafat, only then did I sign the Hebron agreement, or rather, ratify it. It had already been signed. Why does this matter? Because at that moment I actually stopped the Oslo accord.

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Who knew Fox News Sunday mashes up so well with Monty Python? (via yours truly) It's always a trip to see what Jon Kyl gets away with on Fox News Sunday. That said, I'm looking forward even more to seeing what everyone else will NOT get away with on Meet The Press, given that Rachel Maddow is on the panel this morning:

The Chris Matthews Show: Panel with Joe Klein, Time magazine; Trish Regan, CNBC; Katty Kay, BBC; Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune.

Meet the Press: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Panel: David Brooks, New York Times; former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.); Ed Gillespie; Rachel Maddow.

ABC's This Week: White House advisor David Axelrod; Rep. Arizona immigration law: Brian Bilbray (R-Ca.); Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.). Panel: Ron Brownstein; Ruth Marcus; the Washington Post; Reihan Salam, National Review; George Will.

Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.); David Axelrod, White House Senior Adviser.

What's catching your eyes and ears this morning?

Of course, considering how little Israel has conceded to the peace process in the past, just about anything would look good. But I'll cautiously give the Obama administration some props here - they do appear to be serious about forcing at least some progress with Israel:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Saturday that Israel is making "unprecedented" concessions on West Bank settlement construction — a position clearly at odds with the prevailing Palestinian view.

Palestinian leaders have said they will not return to peace talks with Israel unless it halts all settlement building on lands they claim for a future state, and they believe Israel has blatantly defied a U.S. demand for a settlement freeze.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, Clinton said Israel is putting significant limits on settlement activity.

"What the prime minister has offered in specifics on restraints on a policy of settlements ... is unprecedented," she said.

The issue of settlements has become the biggest sticking point in getting Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

Clinton made it clear that she wasn't pleased with Israeli settlement construction but that it was no reason to hold up talks.

"There are always demands made in any negotiation that are not going to be fully realized," she said.

Likely translation: We're going to take whatever crumb you throw as encouragement, but you're not going to get off the hook that easily.

Palestinians expressed deep disappointment and frustration at Clinton's words, which signaled a departure from past U.S. calls for a complete freeze on settlement activity.

"If America cannot get Israel to implement a settlement freeze, what chance do Palestinians have of reaching agreement with Israel on permanent status issues?" Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.

Similar sentiments were voiced by Jordan and Egypt, the only two Arab countries to have peace agreements with Israel. The two countries said most of the blame lay with Israel, but signaled their unhappiness with the American shift.

Jordan's King Abdullah II traveled to Cairo for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. After the meeting, a royal palace statement released in Jordan said both leaders "insisted on the need for an immediate halt of all Israeli unilateral actions, which undermine the chances of achieving peace, especially the settlement construction."

The Bobblespeak Translations: What Obama really said yesterday on Meet the Press. Later in that hour, David Gregory actually did his job...for once

Prairie Weather: The most important health-care document released this week was not Sen. Max Baucus's Healthy Future Act. It was the Kaiser Family Foundation's 2009 Employer Benefits Survey.

Calculated Risk: Senator Dodd pushing new bank regulatory plan

skippy the bush kangaroo: Environmental news

The Washington Note: Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might be Obama's Khrushchev

Rising Hegemon: Conservatives and Porn

Absolutely shocking. Since these types of crime are typically incited by inflammatory rhetoric, it seems likely it had something to do with the ultra-Orthodox activists in the city:

JERUSALEM -- Hundreds of police officers scoured the streets of Tel Aviv on Sunday in a manhunt for a gunman who shot and killed two people and wounded 11 others at a club for gay youth.

The shooting shocked the Mediterranean city, which prides itself on its live-and-let-live attitude and boasts a thriving gay community, and drew condemnations from the city's mayor, from Cabinet ministers and from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "We'll bring him to justice and exercise the full extent of the law against him," Mr. Netanyahu said of the killer, speaking at the Israeli Cabinet's weekly meeting.

A masked man entered a club for gay teens in downtown Tel Aviv late Saturday, pulled out a pistol and shot in all directions, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Israeli media identified the dead as a 26-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl. The man then holstered his pistol and fled the scene on foot into the busy streets of Tel Aviv, Mr. Rosenfeld said.

Nitzan Horowitz, Israel's only openly gay lawmaker, called the attack a "hate crime." "This is the worst attack ever against the gay community in Israel," he said. "This act was a blind attack against innocent youths, and I expect the authorities to exercise all means in apprehending the shooter."

Israel's gays and lesbians typically enjoy freedoms similar to those of gays in European countries. Gay soldiers serve openly in the military, and openly gay musicians and actors are among the country's most popular. Tel Aviv holds a festive annual gay parade, rainbow flags are often seen flying from apartment windows and there is a city-funded open house for the community.

However, ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders often incite against gays, especially in conservative Jerusalem, where there have been clashes between religious and gay activists. In 2005, an ultra-Orthodox protester stabbed three marchers at a Jerusalem gay parade. The ultra-Orthodox Shas party, a frequent critic of gays in Israel, issued a statement condemning Saturday's attack.

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What on earth is going on here? On "This Week" this morning, Biden shrugs off possible Israeli action against Iran with "Whattaya gonna do?". But Joe, while Israel is certainly a sovereign nation, it's one that's heavily subsidized by the United States and we certainly do have a say. Didn't you just give them the go-ahead signal to bomb Iran?

Seems to me this is the moral equivalent of sending detainees to other countries to be tortured and then saying, "That wasn't us!"...

STEPHANOPOULOS: But there will be engagement -- if the Iranians want to...

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: If the Iranians seek to engage, we will engage.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And meanwhile, the clock is ticking...

BIDEN: If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But the offer is on the table?

BIDEN: The offer's on the table.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it pretty clear that he agreed with President Obama to give until the end of the year for this whole process of engagement to work. After that, he's prepared to make matters into his own hands.

Is that the right approach?

BIDEN: Look, Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Whether we agree or not?

BIDEN: Whether we agree or not. They're entitled to do that. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that. But there is no pressure from any nation that's going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.

What we believe is in the national interest of the United States, which we, coincidentally, believe is also in the interest of Israel and the whole world. And so there are separate issues.

If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But just to be clear here, if the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat, they have to take out the nuclear program, militarily the United States will not stand in the way?

BIDEN: Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination that they're existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You say we can't dictate, but we can, if we choose to, deny over-flight rights here in Iraq. We can stand in the way of a military strike.

BIDEN: I'm not going to speculate, George, on those issues, other than to say Israel has a right to determine what's in its interests, and we have a right and we will determine what's in our interests.

These are all conditions previously rejected by the Palestinians, and Bibi's still refusing to halt the settlements, so I'm puzzled by what, exactly, he's saying that's progress. I guess the thing that's interesting is what he didn't say - he didn't use the election riots in Iran as a way to do his usual fear-mongering routine:

JERUSALEM — The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday endorsed for the first time the principle of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but on condition that the state is demilitarized and that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people.

In a much-anticipated speech meant in part as an answer to President Barack Obama’s historic address in Cairo earlier this month, the Israeli leader reversed his longstanding opposition to Palestinian statehood, a move seen as a concession to American pressure.

But he explicitly rejected American demands for a complete freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, hardening a rare public dispute between Israel and its most important ally on an issue seen as critical to peace negotiations.

And even his concession on Palestinian statehood, given the caveats, was immediately rejected as a nonstarter by Palestinian officials.

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