Rand Paul wants to introduce a bill this week to cut foreign aid to the Palestinian government unless it recognizes Israel’s right to exist. The Israeli government has always lobbied the US to not cut off aid because it would destabilize the Palestinians and because Israel makes a lot of money selling to the Palestinians.
A bill that could potentially cut off foreign aid to Palestinians has some surprising opposition: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel lobby, says Sen. Rand Paul, who is sponsoring the legislation.
“Ironically, the group AIPAC is pushing back this bill and this is to me very troubling,” Paul told “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV.
“If I were to speak to the 10,000 folks who come up here [to Capitol Hill] in support of AIPAC, the vast majority of them would support my bill.
“And yet the political establishment up here thinks, ‘oh we’re going to stop this because we’ve always given foreign aid to the Palestinians and we frankly don’t care what their behavior is.'”
Paul believes the opposition is bound to roil the nation as news of it emerges.
“The American people, if they knew that, would be very, very upset and think, ‘you know what, those people are no longer lobbying in favor of America and Israel if they’re not willing to put restrictions on aid to Palestinians,'” Paul said.
AIPAC, which says its mission is to “strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel relationship in ways that enhance the security of Israel and the United States,” had no immediate response.
But an AIPAC source told Newsmax:
“We are not supporting the Paul bill. We believe the law currently on the books is strong and ensures that aid is contingent on key conditions that help maintain America’s influence, keep Israel secure and advance the peace process.
“AIPAC supports a cut off of aid to any Palestinian government that includes an unreformed Hamas, and this is what is provided for in current law.”
Paul said his bill, which he introduced before the Senate on Thursday, would make aid to the Palestinian authority contingent on it recognizing Israel and cut off aid if it does not.
“If we’re going to send money to people in the Middle East who hate our ally of Israel, the money ought to be contingent upon behavior and I can’t see sending it to Hamas,” he said, referring to the terrorist organization whose aim is to establish an Islamic state in Palestine.
“Hamas has in their original charter the destruction of Israel as one of their goals. So how would we ever conceive of American money going to a government that has Hamas as part of it without Hamas agreeing to end hostility and to recognize Israel?
“I just can’t see how we can conceive of sending American money to a group like that.”
On the subject of Benghazi, Paul dismissed White House Press Secretary Jay Carney’s claim that the uproar over an email linking the Obama administration to a cover-up in the deadly attack in which four Americans died is an example of the GOP politicizing the tragedy.
“It’s actually completely the opposite. The Democrats have been politicizing Benghazi because they tried to make it about some kind of talking points,” Paul said.
An email obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch revealed that a White House adviser prepped then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to link the attack to protests against an anti-Islamic video — an explanation later discounted.
“They tried to make it about a movie or a protest [and] really no one on the ground in Benghazi said that that was true,” Paul said.
“There were no signs of a protest, no signs of activity related to a movie…. This was a coordinated terrorist attack on the compound so really from the very beginning they have not been telling the truth.
“They’ve been advising their people, the White House political people advising their spokesman, to really fabricate a story and try to divert attention from the terrorism involved.”
Paul urged the House to compel all those potentially involved in the prepping of Rice to testify about what they know.
“The questions need to rise all the way to the top though…. I’d like to know whether Hillary Clinton was part of the process. Was she in the discussions? The only way we get to the truth of the matter is to have her come back and testify,” he said.
“This is people purposely distorting and telling untruths. This is someone saying … to Ambassador Rice when she goes on television, make sure you emphasize that this is about the movie.
“And yet … not one scintilla of intelligence came out from Benghazi associating this with a movie. People in Washington were doing this, but it … appears as if during an election that campaign concerns seem to have more concern than the truth did.”
@ BethesdaDog:
Sen. Jesse Helms [R-NC] used to oppose foreign aid too
— until it was pointed out to him that MOST of Israel’s “foreign aid” was military assistance made necessary by the military trading we do with her enemies. Whereupon his outlook changed radically; in his later yrs, he became a good friend to Israel.
ALL of the assistance that goes to Israel is now military, not just most of it, and there seems no reason why it shouldn’t be taken under the DEFENSE budget, rather than the Foreign Aid budget.
In the years before the Cold War ended, USA was giving NATO countries (like Denmark) well over $3B/yr and East Asian countries (So.Korea & Japan) more than 20 times that much — and nobody was losing any sleep over it — as it came from the Defense budget.
I love the fact that Rand Paul is supporting Israel’s right to be regarded as the Jewish homeland. Still, there’s some logic and reason to the AIPAC position, which upports the Israeli government’s position. With a cutoff of aid, the Palestinian Authority could fall, and it would only get worse.
What concerns me, is that given Paul’s opposition to foreign aid, when will he support a cutoff of aid to Israel?
The Israeli government’s position is quite simple: “Sure they’re loathsome Jew-hating terrorist thugs but they are OUR loathsome Jew-hating terrorist thugs. Lay off.”
I believe that Rand Paul is right one this one, post-Hamas/Fatah agreement. A lot of people who laughed at Rand Paul a couple of years ago are not laughing now, in the wake of the NSA snooping and IRS harassment of conservative groups.
As for his alleged isolationism:
a) What is Obama doing now, if not isolationism?
b) Even Naftali Bennett has said that Israel no longer needs money from American Jews or the US Government – and not uncommon view amongst Israeli conservatives who see America turning into a Euro-Afro-Hispanic socialist state with whom a break is inevitable.