Ron Paul is Not Anti-Semitic

by Liberty and Power

Ron Paul’s call for ending foreign aid to all countries including Israel and the unsavory nature of some people who publicly support him have caused the charge that he is anti-Semitic to circulate. Some responsible commentators believe the charge to be true. However, the Jewish Theological Seminary’s news service JTA examines the question in depth and it finds an argument that in fact such an end to aid would benefit Israel. They quote Paul as saying that, “our foreign military aid to Israel is actually more like corporate welfare to the U.S. military industrial complex, as Israel is forced to purchase only U.S. products with the assistance. We send almost twice as much aid to other countries in the Middle East, which only insures increased militarization and the drive toward war.” He also asserts that the American control over policy, which comes with the assistance, limits Israeli options and hurts progress towards peace.

In addition, the JTA discovered that though it is not widespread there is some support for the Ron Paul candidacy within the Jewish community. It includes groups such as Jews For Ron Paul and Zionists For Ron Paul.

Cross posted on The Trebach Report

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Keith Halderman - 12/3/2007

Correction " not one shred of evidence"

Keith Halderman - 12/3/2007

I followed all of the links you provided and those embedded in the those posts and it is just as I suspected there is disagreement on policy but one shred of evidence that Paul's views are based on racism. Quite the contrary, there is a eloquent passage quoting Paul that proves the opposite which is of course dismissed out of hand. Instead of making the very difficult argument for open borders their is a resort ad hominem attack. And, I know that the case for open borders is difficult because I have made it myself. This is one area where I disagree somewhat with Paul but this dispute does not stem from the fact that he is a closet racist and I am not. The part of the links I found particularly silly was about the conference where Paul shared the platform with all of these other evil people. I have been to drug policy conferences where someone from the DEA spoke along with others who favored legalization. Does that mean that the DEA speaker favored legalization? I also found it interesting that the post contained an attack on tax resisters, Imagine those horrible people not wanting their money spent on killing Iraqi children.

Jonathan Dresner - 12/3/2007

Start here (and follow the links), and definitely this.

In fact, you should just start reading here: it's a deep well.

Neiwert isn't terribly friendly to the libertarian aspects of Paul's platform, either, but you guys should be used to people considering libertarians "fringe" thinkers.

Keith Halderman - 12/3/2007

Your charge is very vague no names or groups and no definition of what you consider an anti-Semite or racialist. Are those just people you disagree with on policy? I know that Dr. Paul is a philosophically a libertarian and I have spent a great deal of my time with libertarians and have met nary a racist or anti-Semite in those settings. We are concerned with people as individuals not as members of groups. People may disagree with Paul's political positions but the overwhelming majority can see his basic human decency and integrity and that is why so many from so many points of the political spectrum not only support him but love him.

Jonathan Dresner - 12/1/2007

Paul's "consistency" includes regular, long-standing connections with -- not just "support from" but active engagement with -- anti-semites and racialists; whether that's pandering or principled really doesn't concern me all that much, but the fact that it's deliberate does. Your unwillingness to look at the evidence presented (really much more than one post) and acknowledge the reality of the problem no longer concerns me, either: it's been made clear, and I'm not going to waste time and energy dealing with "true believer" imperviousness

Keith Halderman - 12/1/2007

So in this case guilt by association is not a fallacy because Paul's association with the people you object to is irrelevant. This is because, unlike say Hillary Clinton, Ron Paul refuses to pander in order to get votes. He has held the same principled positions throughout his career and he is not changing them for this campaign. Therefore the beliefs of any of his supporters do not matter because Paul's beliefs and positions are not going to change. The core principle of his belief system is the importance of individual rights and the efficacy of dealing with people as individuals in a milieu free from coercion. To accuse him of having racialist or anti-Semitic motivation is absurd because they are antithetical to everything he believes. Also, I do not think the post you linked to supported your assertions in the least. By the author's logic if Hitler came back to life and said the lawn outside was green and someone agreed with him that the lawn was indeed green then that person would be a Nazi sympathizer.

Jonathan Dresner - 11/28/2007

"Guilt by Association" is a fallacy only if the association is accidental, unintentional or otherwise irrelevant to the question at hand. As Dave Neiwert has extensively documented, Ron Paul's connections to racialist groups are long-standing and deliberate, and their support for him is based on their common cause on significant policy issues.

I do not argue that Rep. Paul is anti-Semitic, because he's left no specific evidence to that end, but that his connections to anti-semitic supporters are substantial, deliberate and carefully managed to his benefit. That suggests something about the likely implications of his candidacy (I'm not going to speculate on a Paul Presidency; that would be absurd at this point.) which should be taken into consideration.

Keith Halderman - 11/28/2007

Guilt by association is not an acceptable argument either. Just because someone who holds questionable views contributes to Paul's campaign does not mean that they and Ron Paul are friends. The campaign has no control over who sends them money and they take the very sensible position that anti-Semites and racists etc. etc. who contribute wanting something from Dr. Paul are simply wasting their money. If you want to make the case that Ron Paul is an anti-Semite than do so in an intellectually honest way with arguments based on what Paul himself says and does. Note that the essential part of my post was a direct quote of Paul. I see nothing like that in your comment. The links to the other organizations were added to allow the reader to see what those people had to say.

Jonathan Dresner - 11/22/2007

Not perhaps: you did. And "some of my best friends" hasn't been an acceptable argument against bias for a generation or two, now. Some of Rep. Paul's friends are decidedly anti-semitic; having a few Jews as well just means that someone isn't paying attention.

Keith Halderman - 11/22/2007

If you click on the link that I provided at the top of the page there is a banner which reads "Pioneer Our Future JTS: The Jewish Theological Seminary. Perhaps I mistook an advertisement for an organizational connection. If so I do not think that error changes the substance of the post.

Elliott Aron Green - 11/20/2007

JTA stands for Jewish Telegraphic Agency. It is a Jewish news service going back many years. As far as I know, it has no organizational affiliation with the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.

if you don't believe me, why don't you ask the JTS what, if any, is its link with the JTA? I hope that Mr Halderman's opinions on other issues are more reliable than his jumping to an unfounded conclusion as to some JTA-JTS connection.

On the other hand, the USA likes to give money away to other states. Because that's a way of influencing their policies. That goes for Israel too. Binyamin Netanyahu wanted to stop US foreign aid to Israel when he was prime minister. But the US State Dept probably opposed getting Israel off the US aid narcotic, so that they could continue to bend Israel's policies to suit US State Dept needs.

The biggest all time recipient of US foreign aid is probably Saudi Arabia, which few Americans are aware of. Saudi Arabia got the $$$ through inflated payments for oil by ARAMCO which ARAMCO was able to deduct fully from its US corporate income tax using the pretext that its payments to Saudi Arabia were an "oil income tax," and foreign taxes were exempt according to the Foreign Tax Credit Act.