Gingrich tries to trump Romney in speech to GOP Jewish voters

Newt Gingrich worked to one-up Mitt Romney and the other GOP presidential hopefuls in his approach to relations with Israel, pledging to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, vowing to fund every dissident group in Iran and floating former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as his pick to run the State Department.

Gingrich's comments Wednesday at the Republican Jewish Coalition forum marked an escalation in the contest for which candidate can take the most staunch and unquestioning position in support of Israel.

The former House Speaker also lashed out at President Obama, decrying his approach to U.S.-Israel relations as outrageous and accusing the president of self-deception and appeasement.

"It's always Israel's fault, no matter how bad the other side is. It has to stop," Gingrich said to frenetic applause.

Gingrich vowed, that if elected, within hours of his inaugural address he would issue an executive order moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Israel considers Jerusalem to be its capital and houses its parliament there, but the international community — with almost no exceptions — recognizes Tel Aviv as the capital in deference to Palestinians, who also lay claim to Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Gingrich also said if he could muster enough support, he would make former John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under former President George W. Bush, his secretary of state. A controversial figure despised by many on the left, Bolton embodied an interventionist, hardline approach to U.S. foreign policy, and also flirted with his own 2012 presidential campaign.

"I will ask Congress to liberate the intelligence community so we can once again go back to effective covert activity and effective intelligence gathering," Gingrich said in another dig at Obama.

All the presidential candidates to address Jewish Republican voters at the forum Wednesday talked up the threat that Iran's nuclear program poses to Israel and floated various approaches to thwarting any nuclear ambitions, including economic sanctions and the threat of military action.

But Gingrich took it one step further.

"I will fund every dissident group in the country," he said, despite evidence that some opposition groups in Iran hold anti-American views and the risk that visible U.S. support could bolster the Iranian government's claims that foreign governments are instigating the opposition movement.

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