Ron Paul to Israel: I want to cut off US foreign aid to you! At last night’s Fox News GOP presidential debate, Ron Paul was the clear star. The audience would, for the most part, applaud the loudest at anything and everything he said, but that was mostly due to his few followers in the audience, his acolytes called the Paul-ites. They would always applaud the loudest, creating the fake impression that Paul had broad, GOP support. Paul’s debate performance was also noteworthy for another reason: His hostility towards Israel. He said that he wants to cut off all foreign aid the US distributes, which would hit Israel particularly hard since it currently is the number one recipient of US foreign aid.

Of course, Paul and his band of merry and fanatical followers called Paul-ites like to spin their hostility towards Israel by couching it in devious terms, but we still know hostility to Israel when we see it. In example, the way that Paul argued his anti-Israel, anti-foreign aid point last night was to claim that he didn’t want the US to continue to have to give Israel permission to do things. In other words, he wants a more hands-off US foreign policy not only with Israel, but with the broader Middle East, too. That’s how Paul spins his hostility to Israel: By disguising it as him wanting Israel to be more “independent” and “freer” to do its own thing, without any US involvement or influence.

However, Paul’s vision of an Israel that doesn’t need permission from the US to act on its own comes with a 100% cut in foreign aid to what is America’s best friend in the entire Middle East, the one and only country that does not produce or support terrorists that end up killing Americans. In fact, just the opposite, Israel is one of the, if not the, best ally the US has in fighting terrorists. And it is to this country that Paul wants to cut off all US foreign aid, both in terms of money and, more disconcertingly, weapons that Israel needs to defend itself??!! Good grief! This is just more proof that you simply cannot trust libertarians like Paul when it comes to handling the foreign policy of the US!

In Paul’s scary take on US foreign policy, all foreign aid would be cut, but since Israel gets the most, that’s basically like saying, “F*** you,” to Israel. What a terrible policy that would be if it were implemented, which is what this 75-year-old libertarian wants to do if elected (thank God that has a barely real chance of happening in his lifetime…what’s left of it). You do not cut off foreign aid to a country that’s surrounded by bloodthirsty Arabs who want to kill every single Jew in the land. That’s not only against America’s interests, but it is also unethical to say the least. Without US foreign aid, Israel will have a much harder time surviving against the Arabs, if it survives at all. And then what happens, exactly? America loses one of its best allies ever, thereby strengthening the hand of Arab terrorists who want to kill Americans!

To call Paul ridiculous in this instance is such an understatement that it would be beyond the pale to do so. Paul’s belief of cutting off foreign aid to Israel just demonstrates yet again that libertarians like him cannot be counted on to properly handle US foreign policy. Paul is basically an isolationist. He just wants the US not to be involved anywhere, but that’s already had disastrous effects in recent memory. When the US was not involved in the Middle East as much as it currently is, look what happened: 9/11, which was the worst attack since Pearl Harbor.