Jewish conservatives pushing back against Ron Paul
Ron Kampeas reports on some of the Jewish conservative pushback against that other Ron. In response to Paul’s surge, Jewish conservatives have launched a counteroffensive, trying to spread the word among the Iowa grassroots about his views on Israel and Iran, as well as about his past associations with race-baiting rhetoric. Dan Lederman, a state senator in South Dakota who is active in the RJC and remains influential in the Republican Party in neighboring Iowa, his native state, described a typical outreach effort over lunch with Iowa Republican voters.The assertion that Israel should handle Iran itself if it feels threatened by it - which we are continually told is Paul's position - is not an innocent position. As much as I believe that Israel will have to attack Iran if the United States does not, just by sheer quantity of firepower, the United States is in a much better position to take much more effective action to stop Iran. The claim that if Israel wants to stop Iran it may do so itself is totally disingenuous.
“I brought up a lot of subjects,” Lederman, who backs Gingrich, said in an interview. “His views on national security, the white supremacy thing, foreign policy, the stance that having a nuclear Iran is okay.”
The hope among those spreading the word is that Iowans would take these views to Christmas week get-togethers and that Paul’s support would recede by Jan. 3, when the Iowa caucuses take place.
The Republican Jewish Coalition has made much of its refusal to invite Paul to its Dec. 7 candidate’s forum, attended by all the other main candidates. "He's just so far outside of the mainstream of the Republican party and this organization," RJC Executive Director Matthew Brooks said at the time, explaining that inviting Paul to attend would be like inviting Barack Obama to speak.
It's not just the RJC that's pushing back against Paul; the Republican candidates are too, Brooks noted. “Almost all the major candidates have been articulating their own views that demonstrate how out of touch Paul is with the Republican Party,” Brooks said.
After Paul said in a Dec. 15 Iowa debate that he did not believe that the evidence necessarily supported the contention that Iran was seeking a nuclear weapon, other candidates pushed back.
And the claim that Netanyahu agrees with Paul - which I found here - is also disingenuous. The only candidate in this race who MIGHT have a colorable claim to Netanyahu's support is Newt Gingrich. And I doubt Gingrich has any such claim either.
The Paul campaign has also undertaken a full court press to discredit Eric Dondero - we've even seen some of that in my comments section, and my traffic is nowhere near 100,000 or even 10,000 hits per day. But Dondero's report has been confirmed by Scott Shapiro at Big Government.com.
Shapiro reports that he met with Rand Paul, the candidate's son, who told him that he would not have sent American troops to Europe 70 years ago to end the Holocaust.
And so I asked Congressman Paul: if he were President of the United States during World War II, and as president he knew what we now know about the Holocaust, but the Third Reich presented no threat to the U.S., would he have sent American troops to Nazi Germany purely as a moral imperative to save the Jews?No, it doesn't. Whether or not Paul is an anti-Semite, I cannot support anyone who would govern based on an absolute, hard and fast philosophy like Paul's.
And the Congressman answered:
“No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t risk American lives to do that. If someone wants to do that on their own because they want to do that, well, that’s fine, but I wouldn’t do that.”
Paul then looked at me, and I politely thanked him for his time. He smiled at me again and nodded his head, and many of his young followers were also smiling, and nodding their heads in agreement. Clearly, I was the only one in the room who was disturbed by his response.
When I first presented the story of Paul’s comments about the Holocaust to major news media outlets two years ago, they were so stunned they were afraid to publish my story, and as a result it has remained unpublished until now.
I went to great lengths afterwards to learn more about the basis for Paul’s comments. I spoke to Eric Dondero, a former senior aide for Paul, in February 2010. Dondero is quoted in a Weekly Standard article today about Paul’s isolationist beliefs.
When I called Dondero again this morning, and told him I was finally going forward with the story, he told me that Paul had made similar comments to him.
“He told me numerous times it was not worth it to intervene to save the Jews in World War II,” Dondero said. “I don’t think that’s because he’s an antisemite. It’s because he’s an extreme isolationist and he’s trying to be 100% principled–he doesn’t think there’s any reason to intervene for human rights or any other reason anywhere on the planet.”
Calls to Rep. Paul’s congressional office and campaign office last week and this morning were not returned.
The Holocaust of World War II is not the only historical tragedy that Paul’s isolationism would disregard.
In 2007, the Congressman actually faulted Abraham Lincoln for using military force to end slavery in the Civil War: “He shouldn’t have gone to war… Slavery was phased out in every other country in the world and the way I’m advising that it should have been done is do like the British Empire did; you buy the slaves and release them.”
Editors told me two years ago that they couldn’t believe Paul would respond in the same way to a question about the Holocaust, but I wasn’t surprised. Paul’s answer is actually consistent with much of what he’s been saying for years.
Yet philosophical consistency doesn’t always translate into a policy that is practical–or presidential.
Labels: Holocaust, Iranian nuclear threat, Ron Paul
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:59 PM
2 Comments:
Wait! What?!? *Rand* Paul says this stuff about not stopping the Holocaust? Or *Ron* Paul? That quote is *Rand* Paul?
"Shapiro reports that he met with Rand Paul, the candidate's son, who told him that he would not have sent American troops to Europe 70 years ago to end the Holocaust.
And so I asked Congressman Paul: if he were President of the United States during World War II, and as president he knew what we now know about the Holocaust, but the Third Reich presented no threat to the U.S., would he have sent American troops to Nazi Germany purely as a moral imperative to save the Jews?
And the Congressman answered:
“No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t risk American lives to do that. If someone wants to do that on their own because they want to do that, well, that’s fine, but I wouldn’t do that.”"
I grew up in a family with Jews and non-jews. I would personally volunteer to fight against Hitler if I knew what was going on back then. But I can respect that there are other Americans, who would look at the Jews plight back then as many here in America did during the hundreds of wars in which millions have been killed in the last 40 years. If I had no family connection, would I really volunteer to send my children to save the lives of some in a war far away? If the majority of Americans say, "yes," Ron Paul's position is that we should then declare a war in Congress, state our intentions having a clear goal, fight it and win. But let's be honest. We will not be able to get 51% of Congress' support to wage war against anyone in the middle east. Unless they attack us first--and even then, the trust in government is SO LOW, that the people might still say, "no." Which, by the way, brings me to my last point. Ron Paul's positions on the Federal Reserve System used to be called conspiracy theories, but today some of the wisest investment managers and economists (and a growing percentage of the general population) agree with him. When I hear the press say he surrounds himself with conspiracy theorists, it makes me curious to see what other "theories" he may actually endorse--there's a reason he was on the cover of "Time Magazine" with the title, "The Prophet."
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