A doff of the hat to Aaron Biterman (read his just-published libertarian defense of Israel) for making me aware of Rand Paul’s eminently reasonable position with respect to Israel. The more I learn about Rand Paul, the more I like him, although I don’t support economic sanctions against any country or foreign aid to any country:
The United States Special Relationship with Israel The American Spectator
By Dr. Rand Paul
Candidate, United States Senate
Israel and the United States have a special relationship. With our shared history and common values, the American and Israeli people have formed a bond that unites us across the many thousands of miles between our countries and calls us to work together towards peace and prosperity for our countries.
The free trade agreement that has existed, and been subsequently strengthened, between our countries since 1985 is a tremendous mutual benefit. As a United States Senator, I would work against the growing protectionist sentiment in our country and defend free trade with Israel.
I would never vote to place trade restrictions on Israel, and I would filibuster any attempts to place sanctions on Israel or tariffs on any Israeli goods.
The issue of Palestine is incredibly difficult and complex. The entire world wishes for peace in the region, but any arrangement or treaty must come from Israel, when she is ready and when her conditions have been met.
I strongly object to the arrogant approach of Obama administration, itself a continuation of the failures of past U.S. administrations, as they push Israel to make security concessions behind thinly veiled threats.
Only Israel can decide what is in her security interest, not America and certainly not the United Nations. Friends do not coerce friends to trade land for peace, or to give up the vital security interests of their people.
As a United States Senator, I would never vote to condemn Israel for defending herself.
Whether it is fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon, combating Hamas-linked terrorists in Gaza or dealing with potential nuclear threats in the Persian Gulf, Israeli military actions are completely up to the leaders and military of Israel, and Israel alone.
It is not the place of outsiders to meddle or pass judgment or to use our power or relationship to force Israel to go against her own interest for the sake of “peace.”
Peace is a laudable goal. But it is just that – a goal. It is not an end at any cost.
It makes no sense to me that the United States provides Arab countries hostile to Israel with $12 billion in annual financial and military aid. Many of the weapons that Israel would face in a Middle Eastern conflict would have come directly from our government. I find this appalling. In the Senate, I would strive to eliminate all aid to countries that threaten Israel.
Finally, Iran has become increasingly bellicose towards Israel. Thankfully, Israel has one of the bravest, most elite military forces in the world. I would never vote to prevent Israel from taking any military action her leaders felt necessary to end any Iranian threat.
Just as the United States would not follow the will of another country in the face of our national security, we shall not limit the options of Israel in this area.
Finally, I believe the United States should increase the pressure on Iran. I would mandate that all publicly managed investment funds divest from Iran immediately.
We should not be subsidizing any company that does business with Iran, and we should not allow U.S. companies or those with funds from U.S. taxpayers to enrich Iran through its national energy program. I would fight to end all subsides to American corporations that do business with Iran, including so-called renewable energy companies that work through Brazil to provide support to Iran and empower its dictators dangerous nuclear saber rattling.”
[SNIP]
Go to our archives, and click on the Israel category for the case for Israel. Recommended:
THE NATURE OF THE JEWISH STATE
FOAMING AT THE MOUTH OVER ISRAEL
LIBERTARIANS WHO LOATHE ISRAEL
ISRAEL BELONGS TO THE JEWS
ISRAEL: ISLAND OF JUSTICE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE FENCE
ISRAEL’S SANITY AMONG SAVAGERY
THE FINAL SOLUTION TO THE JEWISH STATE
After delivering a one-two punch to Israel—first the charm offensive in the form of an invite to hang with BHO at the White House, and then an injurious vote with the Third World-dominated UN to deprive Israel of its only military deterrent—Slimy Obama has actually issued a sensible statement in response to an unfortunate position into which Israeli naval commandos had been pushed by the usual “peaceful” poseurs, backers of the “M.O.P.E (Most Oppressed People Ever)”.
First to the statement: “United States deeply regrets” the loss of life and injuries and was working to understand the circumstances surrounding this tragedy.”
THE FOLLOWING REPORT IS VIA AMBASSADOR (RET.) YORAM ETTINGER:
1. The radical Islamic, anti-Western IHH – the chief supporter of the flotilla to Gaza – poses as a humanitarian relief fund (Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation), while supporting Hamas and several Jihadist organizations in Bosnia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Algeria, Chechnya, etc.. 2. The IHH initiated a number of “humanitarian aid” convoys to anti-US Islamic terrorists in Iraq’s Fallujah Triangle. 3. According to the Danish Institute for international Studies, IHH is connected to Al Qaeda and global Islamic terrorism. The Istanbul office of IHH was raided, and IHH activists were arrested, by the Turkish security services. Explosives, IED (Improvised Explosive Device) manuals, weapons and Afghanistan-oriented documents were confiscated during the raid. 4. According to a French intelligence report, Bulent Yildirim, the president of IHH, recruited “Jihad warriors” and transferred money, firearms and explosives to Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists in various countries. Yildirim made telephone calls to European “shelter apartments,” which were used by Islamic terrorists, including Abu el-Ma’ali, known as “Junior Ben-Laden.” IHH produced documents, which facilitated air travel by Islamic terrorists, posing as relief workers. IHH was connected to Ahmed Ressam, an Islamic terrorist, who attempting to smuggle 1320 pounds of explosives and plant them at the Los Angeles International Airport. 5. Bulent Yildirim embraced the world view of the Muslim Brotherhood (the mentor of Hamas in Gaza) and has been a systematic supporter of – and collaborator with – Hamas. He has transferred significant amount of money to Hamas and its “charitable societies” and has promoted – during major Hamas events in Turkey – armed struggle against the Jewish State.
THE CONTEXT OF THE “GAZA FLOTILLA”: 1. Gaza is a bastion of Iran and Syria-supported Hamas terrorism, launching thousands of missiles at Israel, kidnapping Israel’s Gilad Shalit and smuggling into Gaza terrorists, more precise and longer range missiles, explosives and other lethal elements. Efforts have been made to minimize such smuggling via Sinai and from the Mediterranean. 2. Israel’s aim of cooperation was demonstrated by Jerusalem’s offer to allow the “Gaza Flotilla” to reach its destination (in spite of the daily flow to Gaza – via Israel – of food, oil, cement and multitude of products) following a thorough examination of its content. 3. The “Gaza Flotilla” aim of confrontation was demonstrated by its rejection of Jerusalem’s offer and by the handguns, knives, screwdrivers, iron pipes and a gun employed by terrorists on board. Confrontation has been the goal of the “Gaza Flotilla,” as evidenced by the campaign of anti-Israel incitement carried out by its personnel and sponsors. 4. The Israeli soldiers were prepared for a peaceful-takeover in face of (erroneously-assumed) civil disobedience. Therefore, they were equipped with paintball guns as the primary weapon and handguns as an emergency weapon, to be used only if facing death. They resorted to handguns in response to an attempted lynch by the scores of terrorists, who assaulted the soldiers with iron pipes, knives, screwdrivers and a gun. Handguns were snatched from soldiers, by the lynching mob, and were directed at the soldiers. Five boats were taken over peacefully and one (with 600 passengers) became an arena of confrontation between Israeli soldiers and terrorists. Israeli restraint minimized fatalities among terrorists. 5. The responsibility for the fatalities and casualties lies at the doorstep of the IHH, other supporters of the “Gaza Flotilla,” the UN and multitude of governments, which could – but would not – stop the Flotilla. 6. Would NATO allow a “humanitarian aid” convoy, organized by the radical Islamic anti-Western IHH, to travel unchecked to a Taliban stronghold?! Would Germany, Italy or France allow such a convoy to reach “Baader Meinhoff”, “Red Brigade” or “Action Direct” terrorist strongholds? 7. The “Gaza Flotilla” highlights the role of the Jewish State as the outpost of Western democracies in face of Islamic terrorist offensive. De-legitimizing and weakening Israel – the role model of counter terrorism – would be a tailwind for Islamic terrorists – the role model of international terrorism – facilitating their assault on the Free World. It’s not a clash over Gaza; it’s a clash of civilizations!
[SNIP]
It is a good thing that, this time, “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu is canceling the “much-anticipated meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday in a sign of just how gravely Israel viewed the uproar. In Canada, Netanyahu announced he was rushing home but said he had called the American president and agreed to meet again.”
Folks, this is what defending the homeland means. You don’t go on foreign expeditions searching for monsters to destroy; you destroy the monsters when they approach your homeland.
As usual, “Israel’s refusal to put down its guns and mobilize an army of stone throwers to throw stones back at the persecuted Arabs is equated with the crime of using excessive force.”
UPDATE III (June 1): Finally Israel recognizes the need for a super intelligence, both presentable and well-spoken, to serve as ambassador to the US. Michael Oren is indeed all that. For decades, Israel’s PR was fronted by bumbling schlemiels.
Was this a set up? Did Israel get sucked in? Those are legitimate questions. However, I ask you, what would the US do if a flotilla of 6 ships of dubious origins, from the Middle East, was approaching one of its ports. Dirty bomb smuggling, any one?
UPDATE IV: David Frum’s “Stop the Hypocrisy about Israel” focuses on the double standards applied to Israel. I’d add that Turkey crying “bloody massacre” is beyond farcical.
Turks exterminated the Armenians during the First World War and attempted to do the same to the Kurds. These days Turkey prosecutes Turks who dare to “denigrate Turkishness,” like novelist Orhan Pamuk. “Denigrating Turkishness” is code for refusing to deny the Armenian genocide.
“… The legality of blockades as a response to acts of war is not subject to serious doubt. When the United States blockaded Cuba during the missile crisis, the State Department issued an opinion declaring the blockade to be lawful. This, despite the fact that Cuba had not engaged in any act of belligerency against the United States. Other nations have similarly enforced naval blockades to assure their own security.
The second issue is whether it is lawful to enforce a legal blockade in international waters. Again, law and practice are clear. If there is no doubt that the offending ships have made a firm determination to break the blockade, then the blockade may be enforced before the offending ships cross the line into domestic waters. Again the United States and other western countries have frequently boarded ships at high sea in order to assure their security.
Third, were those on board the flotilla innocent non-combatants or did they lose that status once they agreed to engage in the military act of breaking the blockade? Let there be no mistake about the purpose of this flotilla. It was decidedly not to provide humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza, but rather the break the entirely lawful Israeli military blockade. The proof lies in the fact that both Israel and Egypt offered to have all the food, medicine and other humanitarian goods sent to Gaza, if the boats agreed to land in an Israeli or Egyptian port. That humanitarian offer was soundly rejected by the leaders of the flotilla who publicly announced:
“This mission is not about delivering humanitarian supplies, it’s about breaking Israel’s siege on 1.5 million Palestinians.” (AFP, May 27, 2010.) …
[SNIP]
The White House has backed the UN Security Council’s call for an “impartial investigation” into the events.
UPDATE VI: IDF Releases Definitive Flotilla Footage. Observe how these animals swarm the Israeli soldiers. What if these were your Navy SEAL sons?
UPDATE VII (June 2): Israel has been “serbed,” says Serbian writer Nebojsa Malic. See his analysis in the Comments Section.
The concept of American exceptionalism has been hotly debated in connection with what kind of history “The Children” will be force fed in state schools.
My position : “the United States, by virtue of its origins and ideals,” was unique. But most Americans know nothing of the ideas that animated their country’s founding. In fact, they are more likely to hold ideas in opposition to the classical liberal philosophy of the founders, and hence wish to see the aggrandizement of the coercive state and the fulfillment of their own needs and desires through war and welfare.
Thus, I find myself in agreement with this one statement from Princeton’s Joyce Carol Oates:
“[T]ravel to any foreign country,” Oates wrote in the Atlantic Monthly in November 2007, “and the consensus is: The American idea has become a cruel joke, a blustery and bellicose bodybuilder luridly bulked up on steroids…deranged and myopic, dangerous.”
Andrew Roberts, on the other hand, is the Anglosphere’s “advertising agent,” whom some call a historian (most learned sources like the Times Literary Supplement question the value and veracity of his “scholarship”).
Roberts “has endorsed American exceptionalism in his own writings,” and thinks that to question it is to evince “psychiatric disorder,” or belong to liberal America (Rob Stove and I are rightists).
Yes, another learned source is our friend Australian historian Rob Stove, who detests Andrew Roberts (author of the best-selling Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941-1945). Rob has called him a “Court Historian,” the Anglosphere’s greatest modern mythologist perfectly suited to sanitize the Bush presidency.”
In the eponymous essay Rob Stove writes that to Roberts,
“Not only must every good deed of British or American rule be lauded till the skies resound with it, but so must every deed that is morally ambiguous or downright repellent.”
“The Amritsar carnage of 1919, where British forces under Gen. Reginald Dyer slew 379 unarmed Indians? Absolutely justified, according to Roberts, who curiously deduces that but for Dyer, ‘many more than 379 people would have lost their lives.’ Hitting prostrate Germany with the Treaty of Versailles? Totally warranted: the only good Kraut is a dead Kraut. Herding Boer women and children into concentration camps, where 35,000 of them perished? Way to go: the only good Boer is a dead Boer. Interning Belfast Catholics, without anything so vulgar as a trial, for no other reason than that they were Belfast Catholics? Yep, the only good bog-trotter … well, finish the sentence yourself. FDR’s obeisance to Stalin? All the better to defeat America First ‘fascists.'”
Wrote Mom [don’t you hate it when women call themselves “mom”? I see these self-identifiers everywhere, when out on my running excursions. They occasionally swing a kid while talking incessantly on the cell, and are always sedentary and overweight. Sorry for that detour]:
“I do not agree with you at all.…I give this administration a D in foreign policy and public relations…Listen, yes we have made some mistakes in our 300 years, but on the whole, this is the best country on the planet and we are an exceptional nation….This administration’s aim is to diminish our greatness and our status on the world stage…for a One World socialist government…When Obama said we have no borders, I nearly fell out of my chair…if we diminish our borders, we will not have a country….How did he allow Calderone to bash our country? You know why, because he doesn’t think of our country is special…So, I don’t give any points to him, I want my country back…I do not recognize my country anymore….so for you to give this admin. points … that is a no no. Sorry…”
[SNIP]
In other words, even though she and I agree on immigration, I must never be fair to BHO when he is not wrong. Indeed, fairness and non-partisanship have gotten me nowhere.
Tangentially related is another letter received last week in irate response to “In Defense Of Obama’s Apologizing.” This time the “exceptional reader” informed me imperially that he was writing me off and would no longer be reading The Mercer Column because I FAILED TO ENDORSE HIS FAVORITE MASSACRE.
This particular reader was a relic from my years of writing against the Bush war of aggression in Iraq—you know, when all those “red-state fascists” kept trying to get me fired from WND.
The concept of American exceptionalism has been hotly debated in connection with what kind of history “The Children” will be force fed in state schools.
My position : “the United States, by virtue of its origins and ideals,” was unique. But most Americans know nothing of the ideas that animated their country’s founding. In fact, they are more likely to hold ideas in opposition to the classical liberal philosophy of the founders, and hence wish to see the aggrandizement of the coercive state and the fulfillment of their own needs and desires through war and welfare.
Thus, I find myself in agreement with this one statement from Princeton’s Joyce Carol Oates:
“[T]ravel to any foreign country,” Oates wrote in the Atlantic Monthly in November 2007, “and the consensus is: The American idea has become a cruel joke, a blustery and bellicose bodybuilder luridly bulked up on steroids…deranged and myopic, dangerous.”
Andrew Roberts, on the other hand, is the Anglosphere’s “advertising agent,” whom some call a historian (most learned sources like the Times Literary Supplement question the value and veracity of his “scholarship”).
Roberts “has endorsed American exceptionalism in his own writings,” and thinks that to question it is to evince “psychiatric disorder,” or belong to liberal America (Rob Stove and I are rightists).
Yes, another learned source is our friend Australian historian Rob Stove, who detests Andrew Roberts (author of the best-selling Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941-1945). Rob has called him a “Court Historian,” the Anglosphere’s greatest modern mythologist perfectly suited to sanitize the Bush presidency.”
In the eponymous essay Rob Stove writes that to Roberts,
“Not only must every good deed of British or American rule be lauded till the skies resound with it, but so must every deed that is morally ambiguous or downright repellent.”
“The Amritsar carnage of 1919, where British forces under Gen. Reginald Dyer slew 379 unarmed Indians? Absolutely justified, according to Roberts, who curiously deduces that but for Dyer, ‘many more than 379 people would have lost their lives.’ Hitting prostrate Germany with the Treaty of Versailles? Totally warranted: the only good Kraut is a dead Kraut. Herding Boer women and children into concentration camps, where 35,000 of them perished? Way to go: the only good Boer is a dead Boer. Interning Belfast Catholics, without anything so vulgar as a trial, for no other reason than that they were Belfast Catholics? Yep, the only good bog-trotter … well, finish the sentence yourself. FDR’s obeisance to Stalin? All the better to defeat America First ‘fascists.'”
Wrote Mom [don’t you hate it when women call themselves “mom”? I see these self-identifiers everywhere, when out on my running excursions. They occasionally swing a kid while talking incessantly on the cell, and are always sedentary and overweight. Sorry for that detour]:
“I do not agree with you at all.…I give this administration a D in foreign policy and public relations…Listen, yes we have made some mistakes in our 300 years, but on the whole, this is the best country on the planet and we are an exceptional nation….This administration’s aim is to diminish our greatness and our status on the world stage…for a One World socialist government…When Obama said we have no borders, I nearly fell out of my chair…if we diminish our borders, we will not have a country….How did he allow Calderone to bash our country? You know why, because he doesn’t think of our country is special…So, I don’t give any points to him, I want my country back…I do not recognize my country anymore….so for you to give this admin. points … that is a no no. Sorry…”
[SNIP]
In other words, even though she and I agree on immigration, I must never be fair to BHO when he is not wrong. Indeed, fairness and non-partisanship have gotten me nowhere.
Tangentially related is another letter received last week in irate response to “In Defense Of Obama’s Apologizing.” This time the “exceptional reader” informed me imperially that he was writing me off and would no longer be reading The Mercer Column because I FAILED TO ENDORSE HIS FAVORITE MASSACRE.
This particular reader was a relic from my years of writing against the Bush war of aggression in Iraq—you know, when all those “red-state fascists” kept trying to get me fired from WND.
