Ron Paul: Israel is Our Close Friend

[FrankRep]

Ron Paul Responds to President Obama's Middle East Speech


EON: Enhanced Online News
May 19, 2011


LAKE JACKSON, Texas -- Ron Paul, a twelve-term U.S. congressman, member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and 2012 Republican Presidential Candidate, remarked on President Obama’s speech earlier today about the United States’ Middle East policy. Please see the statement below.

“The President gave a speech today about our foreign policy in the Middle East, and once again this administration has proven that it does not understand a proper foreign policy for America. When will our leaders finally do what’s right for America and rethink this irrational approach we’ve followed for far too long?

“Israel is our close friend. While President Obama’s demand that Israel make hard concessions in her border conflicts may very well be in her long-term interest, only Israel can make that determination on her own, without pressure from the United States or coercion by the United Nations.

“Unlike this President, I do not believe it is our place to dictate how Israel runs her affairs. There can only be peace in the region if those sides work out their differences among one another. We should respect Israel’s sovereignty and not try to dictate her policy from Washington.

“The President also defended his unconstitutional intervention in Libya, authorized not by the United States Congress but by the United Nations, and announced new plans to pressure Syria and force the leader of that country to step down.

“Our military is already dangerously extended, and this administration wants to expand our involvement. When will our bombing in Libya end? Is President Obama seriously considering military action against Syria? We are facing $2 trillion dollar deficits, and the American taxpayer cannot afford any of it.

“Our military’s purpose is to defend our country, not to police the Middle East.

“As the President prepares to send even more support to Egypt, we should be reminded that it was our foreign aid that helped Mubarak retain power to repress his people in the first place. Now we have to deal with the consequences of those decisions, yet we keep repeating the same mistakes.

“I am not the only one who can see the absurdities of our foreign policy. We give $3 billion to Israel and $12 billion to her enemies. Most Americans know that makes no sense.

“We need to come to our senses, trade with our friends in the Middle East (both Arab and Israeli), clean up our own economic mess so we set a good example, and allow them to work out their own conflicts.”


Contacts

LIBERTY PAC
Gary Howard, 1-800-RON-PAUL


SOURCE:
http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20110519007204/en

[wizardwatson]

Out of everything he said, you picked "Israel is our close friend" for the thread title. Come on Frank. You could've at least added a "but...".

[FrankRep]

Out of everything he said, you picked "Israel is our close friend" for the thread title. Come on Frank. You could've at least added a "but...".

With all the Israel bashing on Ron Paul Forums, I figured I'd point out Ron Paul's view on Israel.

[squarepusher]

With all the Israel bashing on Ron Paul Forums, I figured I'd point out Ron Paul's view on Israel.

nice catch

[sailingaway]

With all the Israel bashing on Ron Paul Forums, I figured I'd point out Ron Paul's view on Israel.

Oh, come on, you make it sound like that is the predominant theme. Most here are noninterventionist, across the board, and consider Israel an ally, but also a focus for trouble for us, since we tend to do idiotic things around that relationship. A couple or few, max are 'anti-Israel'.

However, as evidenced by the comment above, those posters do seem to gravitate to threads like this. Frankly, the heading is counterproductive, to that extent.

[specsaregood]

However, as evidenced by the comment above, those posters do seem to gravitate to threads like this. Frankly, the heading is counterproductive, to that extent.

It was really just bait for the haters to come out. I appreciate what Frank was attempting to do, but it wouldn't take a fortune teller to predict the reaction from some.

[FrankRep]

It was really just bait for the haters to come out. I appreciate what Frank was attempting to do, but it wouldn't take a fortune teller to predict the reaction from some.

All the anti-Israel people are only hurting Ron Paul. I wish they understood that.

[Brett85]

Oh, come on, you make it sound like that is the predominant theme. Most here are noninterventionist, across the board, and consider Israel an ally, but also a focus for trouble for us, since we tend to do idiotic things around that relationship. A couple or few, max are 'anti-Israel'.

No, it's been confirmed that 62% here are anti Israel.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...n-Israel/page7

[sailingaway]

No, it's been confirmed that 62% here are anti Israel.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...n-Israel/page7

Those polls are such a tiny percent of the people who come here they are completely invalid. Self selected polls are not statistically reliable, by definition.

And 'anti' itself is such a vague word. I have nothing against Israel, but I get pretty irritated when people think we need to treat them like the 51st state -- or the first state. I think we get in a lot of wars supported by the public only because Israel is involved. I am not against them, but I am starting to get a sort of impatient feeling about them, like if the friend you go out with habitually gets you pulled into trouble with them.

Having said that, they are an 'ally' and I recognize that.

I just don't think they should be the cornerstone of our foreign policy they seem to be, to our detriment.

[erowe1]

With all the Israel bashing on Ron Paul Forums, I figured I'd point out Ron Paul's view on Israel.

+ Rep.

[robert68]

Ron Paul’s stance to end all foreign aid across the board and overall non-interventionist position and record on US relations with other countries, is clearly superior to all other Republican candidates.

However, in his book "Liberty Defined", the chapter “Zionism” contains very flawed thinking and history, and is significantly at odds with libertarian principles. When the book first came out, much of that chapter was available online at Amazon.com, which is where I read it. That chapter is no longer available there, and I don’t yet own the book, so I unfortunately can’t quote from it here. Israel isn’t remotely a friend of libertarian principles, or Liberty, if that is approximately what one means by Liberty.

To start with in the chapter, as I recall, he shows the belief in the diaspora myth, that the Israelites of 2000 years ago are the same people as those who identify themselves today as Jews; and he justifies a property rights claim by this.

[undergroundrr]

Israel isn’t remotely a friend of libertarian principles, or Liberty, if that is approximately what one means by Liberty.

I know of no nation-state that is remotely a friend of libertarian principles. Why single out Israel above all others? Why is their property rights claim uniquely heinous? Both you and I are quite likely sitting on apprehended native property as we speak.

Ron Paul's message is that Israel is not special. Its "friendship" should not be worth more OR LESS to the U.S. than any other territorial entity in the world. Neoconservatives can make such distinctions in their think tanks, removed from political office.

[robert68]

Ron Paul’s stance to end all foreign aid across the board and overall non-interventionist position and record on US relations with other countries, is clearly superior to all other Republican candidates.

However, in his book "Liberty Defined", the chapter “Zionism” contains very flawed thinking and history, and is significantly at odds with libertarian principles. When the book first came out, much of that chapter was available online at Amazon.com, which is where I read it. That chapter is no longer available there, and I don’t yet own the book, so I unfortunately can’t quote from it here. Israel isn’t remotely a friend of libertarian principles, or Liberty, if that is approximately what one means by Liberty.

To start with in the chapter, as I recall, he shows the belief in the diaspora myth, that the Israelites of 2000 years ago are the same people as those who identify themselves today as Jews; and he justifies a property rights claim by this.

Following up with the above post, in the chapter "Zionism" of Ron Paul’s “Liberty Defined”, he writes the following:

There is no doubt that Jews have a historic claim on the land itself. The Bar Kochba revolt in AD 135 against' the Roman Empire prompted a large number of Jews to be exiled from the area now known as Israel. Some historians report that the Jewish population of 300,000 was further reduced to a thousand families during the Christian Crusades in the Holy Lands.

This is Zionist fiction. Those who call themselves Jews today are not an ethnic block with lineage back to the territory of historic Palestine 2,000 years ago.

He also writes:

From the 1890s until 1948, when Israel became a sovereign nation carved out of Palestine, immigration was mostly voluntary, gradual, and accomplished with due respect for existing land titles. Zionism, during the first forty years of this movement, was not about taking land by force nor was it about militarism.

This is grade A Zionist fiction. One can start with the many words and observations of Jewish Russian Ahad Ha'Am here.

Then there’s Attorney Stephen Halbrook’s well sourced article titled “The Alienation of a Homeland: How Palestine Became Israel*", published in the The Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. V, No. 4 (Fall 1981), that lays out in detail what really happened. It begins with the following:

“Attorney Stephen Halbrook traces the origins of Palestinian displacement from their homeland to the organized band of robbers known as the Ottoman Empire who presumed to transfer title to land long inhabited by Palestinians to absentee Arab and Turkish landlords. These State-enforced titles were in turn transferred to Zionist organizations who were in turn backed by organized bands of Zionist terrorists—the earliest manifestations of the statelet of Israel.”

There’s also the ruthless Special Night Squads led by psychopath British Officer Orde Wingate in 1938-39, to put down any Palestinian resistance to the ongoing Zionist land theft and intended takeover of Palestine.

The Special Night Squads were a joint British-Jewish counter-insurgency unit, established by Captain Orde Wingate in Palestine in 1938, during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt. The SNS comprised British infantry soldiers and Jewish Supernumerary Police. Wingate hand-picked his men, among them Yigal Allon and Moshe Dayan, and trained them to form mobile ambushes...

Ron Paul also writes:

A continual peaceful transformation would probably have occurred except for the political actions after World War II in which the United Nations turned a local and demographic issue into an international and highly politicized one.

This is just nonsense. The Zionist movement, from the beginning and throughout, has been an international and political movement, never local; and the few Palestinan Jews that there were in Palestine, opposed Zionism. In 1947, Jews, comprising around a third of the population, virtually all recent arrivals from Eastern Europe, held around 6 percent of the land of Palestine (largely acquired by force through the use of absentee landowners). Then, using largely British and US military weapons, they ruthlessly drove most of the Palestinian population off the land they had lived on for centuries or more, and destroyed hundreds of villages. It’s well documented that the Zionist treatment of the Palestinians, over 100 years now, has been antithetical to everything libertarian principles (or Liberty) are about. Ron Paul's way off the mark on this subject.

There’s also Murray Rothbards article on the subject.

[FrankRep]

+ Rep.

Thank you.

[wizardwatson]

With all the Israel bashing on Ron Paul Forums, I figured I'd point out Ron Paul's view on Israel.

If Ron Paul thinks Israel is a "close friend" I'd like to ask a question to Ron. If Israel was attacked in an act of war, should we help defend them?

Judging by the last RP statement in the OP I'm guessing the answer would be no.

[Johncjackson]

If Ron Paul thinks Israel is a "close friend" I'd like to ask a question to Ron. If Israel was attacked in an act of war, should we help defend them?

Judging by the last RP statement in the OP I'm guessing the answer would be no.

It could easily be argued on principle that we shouldn't go to war to help any friend, no matter how close.

[bobbyw24]

With all the Israel bashing on Ron Paul Forums, I figured I'd point out Ron Paul's view on Israel.

Nice to read some diversity of opinion here.

[brandon]

With all the Israel bashing on Ron Paul Forums, I figured I'd point out Ron Paul's view on Israel.

I think it's kind of like saying "I have a lot of gay friends..." before making a joke bashing gays. It may or may not be true, but you gotta cover your ass (strange unintended pun) in today's world.

[FrankRep]

I think it's kind of like saying "I have a lot of gay friends..." before making a joke bashing gays. It may or may not be true, but you gotta cover your ass (strange unintended pun) in today's world.

Ron Paul isn't bashing Israel.

[Johncjackson]

Ron Paul isn't bashing Israel.

There's just no explaining that to anyone. For whatever reason, there is a large contingent of Ron Paul supporters ( Supporters!) who hate Israel, Jews, Mexicans, nose picking, whatever. They need to feel RP feels the same way.

Maybe he does. Maybe I'm wrong. Who knows? I just think that is irrelevant to the point- the proper role of the U.S. federal government when it comes to intervening in the affairs of other nations.

This is an important distinction to make. And I think you get that. Not supporting meddling in the affairs of Israel does not mean one is anti-Israel or an anti-semite or whatever other smear/characterization. Also, this is politics. For whatever reason some supporters want to reduce every policy position to beliefs that are not only often repugnant but also politically retarded.

[brandon]

Ron Paul isn't bashing Israel.

And he also wasn't saying Israel was his friend. It was a loose analogy. I'm suggesting that he has to qualify his remarks with some sort of positive spin to avoid the political assassins who come after all who go near the 3rd rail of politics.

[dannno]

Ron Paul isn't bashing Israel.

Was he bashing Israel when he said Gaza is like a concentration camp?

[towedoubled]

A fairweather friend indeed. We've been warned what will happen if foreign and military aid to the Israel, IMF, NATO, UN. All treaties which must be honored as law of the land. I want to believe that Ron Paul has studied the subject thoroughly and will make the correct decisions.

[thetruthhurtsthefed]

I think it's kind of like saying "I have a lot of gay friends..." before making a joke bashing gays. It may or may not be true, but you gotta cover your ass (strange unintended pun) in today's world.

exactly!!!! Nice analogy!

[gwax23]

I dont understand this ridiculous Israel bashing. We should be neutral and unsolved. Attacking Israel and supporting its enemies isnt better than the current situation. We need to be impartial, Israel is a sovereign state they should do as they please.

[dannno]

With all the Israel bashing on Ron Paul Forums, I figured I'd point out Ron Paul's view on Israel.

Frank, Frank Frank.....The Israel bashing is warranted, although I consider myself a friend of the people of Israel just like I consider the people of any nation my friend, for they are not my enemy.

Ron Paul is a genius..

While President Obama’s demand that Israel make hard concessions in her border conflicts may very well be in her long-term interest, only Israel can make that determination on her own, without pressure from the United States or coercion by the United Nations.p

So he is suggesting that Israel back the $#@! off and leave the Palestinians alone so they can have peace. He just doesn't want to force them to do it.

You also must have forgotten the time when Ron Paul said that Gaza is like a concentration camp?

[marc1888]

With all the Israel bashing on Ron Paul Forums, I figured I'd point out Ron Paul's view on Israel.

I dont think Ron Paul gives a $#@! about Israel or any other state for that matter outwith the United States. That however is not a vote winner with all those fundamentalist crackpots running around So he makes a comment that on the surface will appease the stupid folks but when you read it says the exact same thing Ron Paul has always said.

[LibertyEagle]

I dont think Ron Paul gives a $#@! about Israel or any other state for that matter outwith the United States. That however is not a vote winner with all those fundamentalist crackpots running around So he makes a comment that on the surface will appease the stupid folks but when you read it says the exact same thing Ron Paul has always said.

You mean like Ron Paul, Rand Paul, and the vast majority of the VOTERS in the Republican party whose votes Dr. Paul needs to win the Republican nomination? THOSE people?

Seriously, cut it out with attacking a person's faith.

[TexanRudeBoy]

With all the Israel bashing on Ron Paul Forums, I figured I'd point out Ron Paul's view on Israel in the most misleading way I possibly could

Fixed

[jmdrake]

With all the Israel bashing on Ron Paul Forums, I figured I'd point out Ron Paul's view on Israel.

The founding fathers' view would be that Israel, Iran, Syria, Libya, Great Britain, France, China, Russia and any other nation you can think of should be our "close friend".

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none." ~ Thomas Jefferson