Use at your own risk. This is an answer I gave to a fellow Jew who was concerned about Ron Paul’s Israel stance. Not the foreign aid issue, but his calling Gaza a “concentration camp” and seeming unwillingness to help Israel if she found herself in existential danger.
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OK, I guess I’ll put in my final 10 agorot. Take it or leave it. I’ll just have bullet points, I don’t have time to adequately defend what I’m saying here. Just writing it so you can get the surface of my thought process. I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I warn you that I have a radically strong faith that is either blinding me to reality or helping me see the truth. I honestly can’t tell because if I’m blind, I’m blind. This is just what my mind is telling me based on what I’ve seen so far in my life.
1) I take it as a given that Israel will never be destroyed again. This is it, we’re here to stay, no one will destroy our sovereignty. This is an axiom, accept it or not, it’s what my beliefs are based on.
2) You’re right. Ron Paul does not want a special relationship with Israel. To that end, you’re right that if Israel were in existential danger, Ron Paul wouldn’t lift a finger on his own. I am aware of this. But if you go back to point 1), that’s irrelevant for me. And if you’re worried and don’t accept point 1, then if Congress decided to lift its finger, Ron Paul would follow. He would not interfere and discourage congress or go to war kicking and screaming. He would just let congress be because he believes in the separation of Powers religiously. Ron Paul may be a lutheran in name. But his Bible, the book he makes his life decisions on, is the Constitution.
3) Ron Paul is not a Jew. He doesn’t understand the kind of subconscious disgust and revoltion it causes in us Jews when he says we put someone in “concentration camps”. If I were Ron’s campaign manager, I would advise him to apologize for using that word, or at least vow never to use it again. If he wants to distinguish between manzanar and auschwitz, then use the word Internment Camp at least. Even if distasteful, it’s not disgusting. But to him, “concentration camp” is just a word. His grandparents weren’t murdered and burned. He doesn’t have that sensitivity, and we can’t blame him for it. He used it carelessly, and as we all know, Ron Paul is a phenomenally bad speaker.
3) I don’t want a special relationship with America. I want to be friends with them, but I don’t see any of this “special bond” nonsense. They are Esav, we are Yakov, we’re brothers but we are on different paths. Our special bond is with God, not America. Not with the White House. God doesn’t want us to have a special relationship with anyone. We are a nation that dwells alone and we are not counted among the nations. Any attempt to bow to the next Pharaoh Necho will backfire. God will take care of us from his Big Oval Office in the sky.
4) In the video you sent, watch again from 2:40 to the end. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYNLXYLM44c&feature=player_embedded#%21 He clearly says he has a “personal opinion” that he would not act on because as president he has no right to act on his own peronsal opinions. I trust Ron Paul never to violate the constitution in favor of his personal opinions. If you don’t, then don’t vote for him.
5) He is not a flip flopper on anything. Once again, he has personal opinions that contradict what he says he would do as President. Those are two different planes entirely. He’s running for President. He’s not running for Ronpaulident. He says the US should trade with Israel and be friends even though he thinks we’re doing bad things because he believes in the Jeffersonian ideal of friendship with all, entangling alliances with none. What we do is none of his “presidential” business and he says that openly.
6) Go back and read Moshe Feiglin’s article on the Marmara. You’ll see he agrees with everything Paul says, except Feiglin doesn’t use the word “concentration camp” because Feiglin is a Jew. Gaza is our fault. We ARE the aggressors, because we’re locking them up there with nowhere to go. Just like America must come to terms with its foreign policy contributing to 9/11, we must come to terms with our own evil policies contributing to terrorism. The land is God’s. To give it to them is evil, and Gaza is OUR fault entirely. We left the land, said it isn’t ours, said it’s THEIRS, destroyed homes and ripped apart families and caused kids and parents to commit suicide in despair that they had lost their lives and incomes. And now we have the CHUTZPAH to blockade the place?! What are we mad? We are the sinners. They’re just arabs. We’ve got to pay them to get out of our land and we’ve got to move back in, or otherwise get out of this whole country and call it quits back to Galut. And the only president who wouldn’t lift a finger if we paid them all to get the hell out our country and killed whatever terrorists remained? It’s the same guy who wouldn’t lift a finger if we were in trouble either. Ron Paul.
7) I think I addressed most things here.
Good Shabbos to you all.
The Jewish Libertarian 
Raffi, well said.
I’m an American and I support Ron Paul. His focus is on turning around America from our path of economic destruction. As unpleasant is this might be to those who fear the unknown, that means a worldwide draw down.
I can assure you, Israel is capable of defending itself because God is with his people.
Raffi, I am an American and it pleases me so that you understand Ron Paul and his, leave them alone, policy with Israel.. I have been beating my head against the wall here trying to explain to the American People that we should allow God to be your leader not America. I have only heard from two people from your country and each one has said the exact same thing that you have said.. I really think the Jewish population of My Country, America, feels guilty that they are not there with you to support her… so they think by America sending what little money they send you is showing support of your country… when in fact is is enabling your country to do what God wants his people to do… I have faith in God that he will protect Israel but if the people of Israel allows another Country to dictate what you can and can not do as far as protecting your country the way that your government sees fit… then your people will surely suffer under God’s judgement for allowing a President like Muslim Obama to tell you what you can and can not do to protect yourself… and Ron Paul would protect your country if it is agreed up on by our Congress to do so… please keep your message out there about How America is enabling your country maybe eventually the American people will see the truth in this… I want you to know that Americans are praying for your country . God Bless you and stay safe…
Kathy –
Your words give me strength and hope. May you be blessed. Unlike most Christian Zionists who say they bless us but really want to control us and have me their little pet, you understand true blessing is independence and freedom.
One caveat, I don’t think Obama is a muslim, but more than that I think it’s irrelevant religion he is. He’s egotistical and power hungry. That’s more dangerous than any religion because it infects religion, whatever it happens to be. See my next article on this.
Well said, Rafi. Actually, Obama and all other modern statists-collectivist-central planners’ religion is the State. The State and those who run it are supreme. The State does not like competition so it does one of two things: It outlaws and controls religion as in most communist states or it combines the State and religion into one. Note leader worship in N. Korea, China, etc. It is no accident that pharaohs and Roman emperors were considered gods, too. Many muslim countries are attempting to the same thing by establishing theocracies where the State and religion are one. This always ends badly for freedom and the nation.
I am a Ron Paul supporter, as well. As I understand his thinking Israel is a part of a larger ideology of nonintervention, liberty and unintended consequences. Simply put, nations should be free similar to individuals therefore we cannot try to manipulate them to our own ends and it is incumbent upon them to solve their own problems. Finally, you cannot predict or control the consequences of intervention. Paul likes to demonstrate that we helped install the Shah of Iran who was overthrown by a hostile theocratically driven populace. For all we know Egypt, Libya and others may suffer the same fate. So, Israel is free to solve its own problems and it has many unique problems found nowhere else in the world.
The last thing I would say having read a few of your other excellent posts is that while Ron Paul is a catalyst for a libertarian movement the ideas are bigger than him and predate him…and will post date him. So, in my mind, to support a Ron Paul is more to support a slate of ideas that are bigger than the man. All other candidates are different. It is generally about the man or woman and less so about an ongoing set of ideas and principles.