Ron Paul Addresses Israel Issue in Radio Interview

Following the success of Ron Paul's $6 million fundraising day, the good doctor was in Iowa this week for a string of local and national media interviews. On a local talk radio show with Mac McCoy, the subject of Israel came up. Mr. McCoy asked how future President Paul would handle Shmolmert's demand to stay in Iraq lest Iranian influence take over that country and destroy Israel. In truth, Iranian influence has grown in Iraq and the hardline Iranian position strengthened specifically because of the occupation of Iraq and the end to the balance of power between those countries that any realist scholar would advocate and the traditional Republican policy sought to maintain. In response, Paul repeats the Zionists for Ron Paul talking points - our aid finances the Arabs collectively more than Israel despite Israel being the largest single aid receipient and our interventionist policy restrains Israel from defending itself either by military operations or peace initiatives.

Audio of the interview is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3lxo9WIR6w, the relevant portion starts at about 6:10.

In other news:
We previously reported on the congressional candidacy of Michael Moshe Starkman running as a "Ron Paul Republican." Mr. Starkman posted frequently on the Ron Paul facebook group and in my correspondence with him, confirmed his support for Dr. Paul. Now, it has come to our attention that Mr. Starkman has joined the Fred Thompson campaign. Starkman seems like a nice guy and a genuine supporter of limited government, but I apologize to anyone who may have been led to believe that he was a Ron Paul supporter.

This is a bit old, but I'm adding a link to Zionists for Ron Paul founder and leader, Yehuda HaKohen's interview with Ron Paul supporter Shmuel Ben-Gad on Arutz Sheva, Isreal National Radio.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/124307
We're still trying to get Ron Paul himself on Arutz Sheva, but he's had bigger outlets to hit lately like CNN, Fox News, Meet the Press, Time magazine and so forth.

Jewish Community Leader Runs for Congress as "Ron Paul Republican"

Through the Ron Paul facebook group (linked on the right) I recently learned about Michael Moshe Starkman. Starkman is running as a Republican in Maryland's 4th Congressional District and openly endorses Ron Paul. Starkman is a 30 year old entreprenuer who leads both his own technology start-up company and a synagogue which serves the local community in conjuction with a private Jewish school. As a man of both Torah and high-tech, he represents two of Israel's greatest strengths - the blessing of Hashem and a dynamic economy. He has spent time studying in Israeli yeshivas and has many family members who have made aliyah. Even with this background, he is firmly focused on the traditions that make America great: our heritage of limited, Constitutional government, including a foreign policy of peace and non-intervention.

Starkman has run for this heavily gerrymandered Democratic seat before, when he was deafeted by a lopsided 82-18%. However, he was largely a "paper candidate" at the time who was devoting most of his political energies to helping a friend in a neighboring district and merely filled the ballot for the undermanned GOP in his own. This time around is different as Starkman is focusing on his own race and his opponent, incumbent Al Wynn is facing a stiff primary challenge likely to divide the Democratic base over Wynn's pro-war stance.

If we can get Ron Paul the Republican nomination - a feat that looks about 100x more likely now than when we started back in February - there is little chance he would lose to the pro-war Hillary Clinton. And when/if that happens, we'll need more "Ron Pauls" in Congress promoting our freedom message. Please join me in helping one of our best candidates - Michael Moshe Starkman.

http://www.starkmanforcongress.com/

This was an op-ed in Friday's Israel National News

Ron Paul Should be the Zionist Choice for US President
by Shmuel Ben-Gad

He opposes US foreign aid to Israel.

Since the Six Day War, US presidents and presidential candidates have
tended to speak of the US and Israel as great friends and allies. They
have also tended to favor the shrinking of Israel's borders. This has
reached a low point under the Bush administration, which is the first
one to explicitly make its policy the establishment of an Arab state
in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Thus, the US alliance with Israel has been
a decidedly mixed blessing.

Israel receives military and financial assistance, and also some
diplomatic support at the United Nations, but the US puts pressure on
Israel to surrender parts of the homeland. Even worse, this
relationship seems to foster a mentality of dependence amongst many
Israelis who, it seems, cannot imagine Israel defying the United
States in any major way.

In the upcoming presidential election, however, there is a chance to
change this dramatically, by electing Congressman Ron Paul, a
candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Dr. Paul favors
a non-interventionist foreign policy. He has written:

"Yet, while we call ourselves a strong ally of the Israeli people, we
send billions in foreign aid every year to some Muslim states that
many Israelis regard as enemies. From the Israeli point of view, many
of the same Islamic nations we fund with our tax dollars want to
destroy the Jewish state. Many average Israelis and American Jews see
America as hypocritically hedging its bets.... It is time to challenge
the notion that it is our job to broker peace in the Middle East and
every other troubled region across the globe.... 'Peace plans' imposed
by outsiders or the UN cause resentment and seldom produce lasting
peace.... The fatal conceit lies in believing America can impose
geopolitical solutions wherever it chooses."

In this, Dr. Paul is hearkening back to what George Washington
counseled in his famous farewell address: "The great rule of conduct
for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial
relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible."

The Republican Jewish Coalition (a fervent supporter of the Bush
administration, which it claims is a great friend of Israel) refused
to invite Dr. Paul to its candidates forum because he opposes aid to
Israel. But, as we can see, Dr. Paul's position is based upon a
principled, modest, non-interventionist foreign policy - not upon
anti-Zionism. Indeed, in a way, his foreign policy is mirrored by his
small government domestic policy. Both recognize there are real limits
to what a government can usefully do.

It is true that Israel is a small state in a highly dangerous
neighborhood, but it is an economically and technologically vibrant
country - even more so recently, as the shackles of socialism have
been somewhat loosened. Cutting the apron strings to the US would, I
think, make Israel become more maturely self-confident, because it
would be more self-reliant.

A Ron Paul presidency would be healthy for Israel in yet another way.
Dr. Paul is opposed to organizations like the United Nations and the
International Criminal Court that dilute national sovereignty. If the
United States, in a Paul administration, withdrew from the UN and
similar institutions, imagine what a blow this would deliver to their
power and prestige. I find it a thrilling prospect. Maybe Israel would
have a wise enough government to follow suit.

Now, I do not support Ron Paul only for Zionist reasons, nor do I
think US pressure is the primary cause for the current politically and
culturally debilitated conditions of Israel. The primary cause, in my
opinion, is the self-debasement of the Hebrew nation both in the
homeland and abroad. This manifested itself most severely in the
Israeli government's expulsion of Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria,
and in the almost total lack of opposition that greeted this from the
Jewish Diaspora.

It seems to me a Ron Paul presidency would be good for Israel and for
the United States. Its foreign policy non-interventionism and its
concern to protect national sovereignty would provide Israel with a
greater impetus to increase its own independence and sense of national
honor. I hope American Zionists will resist the immediate,
meretricious attractions of American financial assistance for Israel.
Ron Paul would both end this infantilizing, and even corrupting, aid
and respect Israel's national sovereignty.

Taking the long and deep view, Ron Paul should be the Zionist choice.

Christian Zionists Don't Need Government Middle-man to Support Israel

As Ron Paul's campaign builds momentum, he's beginning to pick up support from the pro-Israel community (welcome to our counterparts at Jews 4 Ron Paul). Yesterday at Daily Paul, a Christian Zionist writing as "Christopher X" weighed in:

I am a Christian who supports Israel. But I also agree with Ron Paul on this
Topic. Just like countries that may need "humanitarian" support, it is not right
for the Federal government to "steal" from us in a tax and support them. Ron
Paul says that if the tax money was left in our hands instead of the federal
government taking it from us and deciding what to do with it, that we could do
with the fruits of our labor as we please. Whether it is helping people of other
countries survive droughts, or if it is supporting Israels right to exist in
it's own land.The Christians that support Israel, like me, can figure out that
we can support Israel without the intrusion of the government. Christians do not
need a middle man (the federal government) to take our money and support Israel.
We can support them by ourselves or in a united fund run by Christians. This
actually is the only way that makes any sense anyway. For we know that the
government would take alot of the money and do hideous things with it, and say
that they are supporting Israel with it, like alot of the candidates are saying
right now. It makes sense in bussiness, and in Charities, that the fewer the
"middle men", the more efficient the bussiness or Charity is and the more
dollars are used for the intended purpose. So I do not know why Ron Paul's
stance on this subject should be of any alarm to Christians who want to support
Israel. Just the opposite in fact, we could do with our money as we want instead
of watching the federal government take our money and do things with it that we
would never approve of.

The point Christopher makes is like many of Paul's positions - its so clear cut and simple that its overlooked. The reality is that the majority of the aid the US gives to Israel comes back to American defense companies, thus not providing any real benefit to Israel and in fact, stunting the potential of its own industry. But what of the rest of that money? Does it go toward advancing the aims of Christian Zionism?

If we do some rough figuring, we can see that the average American "contributes" $10 to the state of Israel. What would you, Christian Zionists, like to do with your $10? Would you give scholarships for students from the periphery to attend one of Israel's fine universities? Strengthen the communities of Judea and Samaria, the heart of the Jewish homeland? Provide comfort to the residents of Sderot and the south suffering the effects of the US government-endorsed Gaza disengagment?

Or maybe you would just trust the notably Arabist State Department to make that choice for you. Because that's what we're doing when we support any kind of foreign aid. As it stands the State Department takes your money and does things like slipping $25 million to "forces loyal to Abbas" (translation: arming anti-Israel terrorist groups) inside a "humanitarian" relief bill like they're trying to do now. I think we'd do better donating that money ourselves, as individuals, like Ron Paul advocates so we can truly support Israel.

WHEN ANTI-GLOBALIZATION BECAME ANTI-ISRAEL

Back in late 1999, the World Trade Organization convened in Seattle for their Ministerial Conference with the aim of launching a new millennial round of trade negotiations that would expand their global monopolies and further exploit laborers around the world. Deciding to finally take a stand against injustice, I traveled with some friends to Seattle and hooked up with other groups in a youthful attempt to shut down the conference. After years of helplessly spinning our wheels, this was the first time we had managed to properly organize. Anti-globalization activists from all across America were there numbering (according to the most modest estimates) over forty thousand angry protestors. Not only did we shut down the conference but we even shut down downtown Seattle. In order to regain control of the situation, the police were forced to resort to tear gas and rubber bullets. Although delayed, the WTO conference did take place. But the anti-globalization movement was born and through what the press dubbed the “Battle of Seattle” we drew the public’s attention to the immorality of globalization.

Over the next couple of years our opposition gained steam and grew into a potent impediment to the ruling elite and their global agenda. And many of us were quickly discovering that theories previously espoused by only conspiracy weirdoes were in fact partially true and that economic globalization was only one element of a greater political agenda reshaping the entire world. It turns out that within most Western governments today there is a hidden oligarchy directing foreign policy. And all major media outlets have meticulously fed its agenda to the public.

But following the Battle of Seattle, the establishment was faced for the first time with opposition that they couldn’t dismiss as eccentric conspiracy nuts. Although there might have been a few oddballs in the movements that were now cooperating against the global capitalist machine, most of us were young idealists who looked good on camera and spoke articulately when interviewed. And we were drawing serious media attention to the globalization issue all over the world.

I like to think that the establishment panicked a little before thwarting our success. I picture them wearily chain smoking together at wee hours of the morning in fancy hotels trying to figure out how to neutralize our efforts. But neutralize they did.

2002 started out as a good year for our cause. We held large scale demonstrations in New York and followed them up six weeks later in Barcelona. We were gearing up for an April protest against the G8 in Washington. But something happened at that event (or in the planning stages just before) that took the anti-globalization movement off track and completely spoiled everything we had accomplished until then. The demonstration was hijacked by activists I had never seen before and was transformed predominantly into a demonstration against Israel. Instead of targeting the G8 as we had planned, the activists called for a “global intifada” to protest what they called Israeli atrocities. I vainly tried to point out that Israel was not even part of the G8 but was shouted down and accused of supporting Zionist crimes.

The question that has bothered me ever since that April 20^th demonstration has been why the anti-globalization movement was redirected against Israel. Was the Jewish state chosen at random as an issue to divert our attention or was the establishment trying to kill two birds with one stone? A major goal of political globalization is to eliminate the existence of small countries and replace them with large continent blocks (such as the European Union) that will eventually grow to connect and engulf the world under a centralized authority. The State of Israel, a small Jewish nation-state, sits uncomfortably and inconsistently amongst hostile Arab regimes bent on her destruction. So long as Israel continues to exist, globalization’s inroads into the Middle East will be limited (not because the Israeli government tries to obstruct the globalist agenda but simply because Israel’s existence prevents the region from becoming homogenized). To make matters worse, many power brokers in Washington DC and New York have lucrative oil interests dependent on placating Arab leaders.

After researching the recent political history of the Middle East I discovered that since the beginning of the 1990s, the international community – led by the United States – has worked to aggressively extract territorial concessions from Israel. While these concessions have been marketed to the world as returning land to a disenfranchised Palestinian Arab nation, any objective researcher can see that no Palestinian nation ever existed and certainly never held sovereignty over territory now controlled by Israel. The global elite simply want to shrink and weaken Israel into a position of either extreme dependency on foreign powers or physical annihilation due to indefensible borders. When former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir stood firm against former US President George H.W. Bush, Bush and his Secretary of State James Baker III successfully exerted themselves to oust Shamir from office and replace him with Yitzhak Rabin (a leader they perceived as weaker and more controllable). Since then every Israeli Prime Minister has behaved as a vassal for foreign powers. At least half of the Israeli public has been convinced by a clever media campaign that territorial concessions to Arab enemies are in the country’s national interest. If Israel were to refuse to capitulate at any point, the West might embargo trade and weapons to the Jewish state. But by submitting to international pressure, Israel has put her very existence at risk.

Contrary to what many would have us believe, the struggle for “greater Israel” is not a neo-conservative or rightist cause but actually the front line today in the battle against globalization. By fanning the flames of animosity and hatred in the Middle East, Western governments have spent decades exacerbating the Arab-Israeli conflict, victimizing both populations as oil and weapons industries increase their profits. As a political organizer who has fought for human justice all my life, I urge my fellow activists to combat globalization by defending the State of Israel’s basic right to live securely in full borders. Grassroots organizations must emerge throughout the United States to exert compelling moral pressure on America’s political leadership that will decelerate the Western capitalist machine and save Israel from destabilization. Globalization today undermines the environment, labor rights, national sovereignty, local businesses, and the cultures of indigenous peoples. The State of Israel has been viciously maligned by the corporate media establishment in order to legitimize Western attempts to shrink its borders and blunt its ability to deter outside aggression. Those of us who truly oppose injustice can kill two birds with one stone by halting globalization in the Middle East through opposing America’s current attempts to shrink Israel.

Updates

The blog has been down awhile as I've been in the process of moving back from my favorite country in the world to my other favorite country in the world. From G-d's country to "God's country" you might say. Now that I'm firmly back on US soil its been great to see this Ron Paul Revolution I've followed online up close and in person. I've also got a backlog of topics to comment on and hope to get to all of them as time and situation permits including Iran's financial situation, Gidi Grinstein on the future of US-Israel relations, and more.

For the time being, here's the update. The major event for the campaign has been a number of non-binding preference straw polls conducted around the country. The official campaign summarizes the performance here.

Straw Poll Date Paul's Rank Paul's Percentage
HRCC (Minnesota) 8/22/2007 3 16.0%
Ronald Reagan Club (Washington) 8/21/2007 1 28.0%
West Alabama 8/18/2007 1 81.2%
Strafford County, NH 8/18/2007 1 72.2%
West Lafayette, Indiana 8/18/2007 4 11.7%
Illinois State Fair 8/17/2007 3 18.9%
Students for Life of America 8/16/2007 4 9.0%
Western Montana Fair 8/15/2007 6 4.0%
Gaston County, NC 8/14/2007 1 36.6%
Ames, Iowa 8/11/2007 5 9.1%
National Federation 8/6/2007 3 14.0%
of Republican Assemblies (NFRA)
St. Louis, MO 8/4/2007 3 13.9%
Georgetown County, SC 7/28/2007 2 17.9%
New Hampshire Taxpayers 7/7/2007 1 65.3%
Cobb County, GA 7/4/2007 2 17.0%
California Republican Assembly 7/1/2007 4 12.0%
National Taxpayers Union 6/16/2007 2 16.7%
Utah GOP convention 6/8/2007 2 5.4%

Granted, some of these poll are clearly not a fair fight. None of the big-government world-police Republicans could be expected to compete with the good doctor in a poll sponsored by the New Hampshire Taxpayer's Union (a branch of the national NTU that got so fed up with Dr. Paul sweeping their awards every year they just gave up and named him "Taxpayer's Best Friend EVER") or with the West Alabama Republican Assemblies (a group of the old Goldwater Republicans) or with something called the Ronald Reagan Club. Nonetheless, the picture of the 2008 race on the ground is clearly different from the Rudy McRomney show that CNN is telling you. (Big news media letting their bias come in the way of accurate reporting, have we heard that before, Israel supporters?) The Ames, Iowa straw poll is probably the most indicative as it was the one that attracted all 10 major Republican candidates and generated the most national attention. Despite only having spent a week and some change in Iowa and running ads only in the week leading up to the poll, we were able to turn out 9% of hardcore Republican activists. An even larger band of supporters showed up from out of state to cheer Paul on and help with the organizing. As the campaign picks of steam heading into the fall, check out all the great things coming up at the official site or your local MeetUp group.

Now its Your Turn: Despite Paul's lead by all grassroots measures - supporters organizing online, straw poll votes, cash on hand - some groups still don't consider him a leading contender. One of those groups is the Republican Jewish Coalition. They decided not to invite Dr. Paul to their presidential forum on October 16. Ostensibly they don't consider Paul a "top 6" candidate even though you can see he's never finished worse than 6th in any poll that requires a voter to get out of the house and cast a ballot. Really, I think they'd rather have their ears tickled with bald-faced lies about moving the US embassy to Jerusalem (just like Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush2 did) than hear from a candidate who actually thinks Israeli policy should be made in Jerusalem. Please politely alert them to the error of their ways at rjc@rjchq.org. They actually responded to my email with a polite invitation to join their group though I think I fail the first requirement for membership, but at least it shows they listen to us. And just for kicks, tell them Zionists for Ron Paul sent you.

"Friends of Israel" Deal Arms to Saudi Arabia

Some of our counterparts among pro-Israel Republican voters like to say that George Bush is the best friend Israel ever had. (An opinion confirmed by the fact that I could research this post solely by Googling the phrase "best friend Israel ever had.") So its interesting to see what our best friend's top subordinates have been up to in the last few days.

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have been in Saudi Arabia this week trying to coax the kingdom into doing something to support the flagging occupation of Iraq, presumably by aiding the Sunni minority that ruled Iraq until the US overthrew them and a Shia regime lead by ayatollahs formerly exiled to Iran was voted in.

Now generally when the US needs to rally the troops to whatever its cause in the Middle East happens to be at the moment, the carrot it holds out is pressure on Israel. We can see this most clearly after the 1991 Gulf War when Israel was cajoled into the Madrid Peace Conference which did nothing to benefit Israel and even less to promote peace. This time, however, they're throwing in a new sweetener: $20 billion worth of arms sales, which will look nice on the mantle next to the $13 billion in military aid to Egypt.

Ironically, Israel's "leadership" is unconcerned with this development. Perhaps Israel has been assured that the weapons going to Saudi Arabia are wired to self-destruct in the event of an extremist take over the of Kingdom. Or maybe they are programed only to work on Iranians. Or the reason is simply that Olmert, in a reverse of the trend toward economic independence begun by the Netanyahu administration, secured from President Bush a further promise of $30 billion in aid over the next decade for Israel.

The increased aid to Israel will be critical, Israeli Cabinet members say, to maintain Israel's "qualitative advantage" over any potential opponent. While its certainly a noble end for Israel to be better equipped than any enemy, especially given its disadvantages in wealth, geography, and demographics versus the Arab world, stop and think about this for a second. If there was no American military aid whatsoever to the region - no $20 billion to the Saudis, no $13 billion to Egypt, no $30 billion to Israel - which side would have a qualitative advantage? Obviously the smart money here would be on Israel. While Israel is one of the world's technology leaders (even more so in security technology) Arab technological achievements are like French military victories - there are a lot of them but you have to go back centuries in the history books to find any. So all military aid and arms sales to the region does is undermine what would be a natural qualitative advantage for Israel based on a more developed society necessitating more aid from the US to Israel to reconstruct the advantage that aid to Arab nations undercut. Because of the inherent security dilemma this ratchets up the potential lethality of future Middle Eastern conflict, thus hurting Israel's human security, and sending the message that "Israel's best friend" is, in the words of Ron Paul, "hypocritically hedging its bets."

On an interesting side note to this from the campaign trail, Rudy Giuliani recently named Norman Podhoretz, the noted neo-con as an advisor. Podhoretz claims that Giuliani would take a much stronger approach to Saudi Arabia, basing this on the famous incident when Giuliani returned a donation for relief from 9/11 from a Saudi prince after said prince laced the presentation ceremony with anti-Israel references. That's all well and good, but one does have to question the liklihood of a change in policy from a man who had no qualms about taking money from the Saudis when it enriched himself rather than his constituents. As Fox News reports:

[Giuliani's firm] also is working for Saudi Arabia. In March the firm
filed papers in a Texas courst case on behalf of Saudi Arabia's oil
ministry.

Clearly the better policy is that of non-intervention, to stay out of local conflicts and stop arming both sides in preparation for a potential regional war. It will cost the US alot less in terms of money and goodwill around the world and leave Israel in a stronger, more secure position to carry out its own policy on peace and security.