According to Rand Paul, Israel is a welfare recipient and it’s time to end (as is the money transferred to American arms industry via foreign aid). As Paul puts it:
I’m not singling out Israel. I support Israel. I want to be known as a friend of Israel, but not with money you don’t have…We can’t just borrow from our kids’ future and give it to countries, even if they are our friends…I think they’re an important ally, but I also think that their per capita income is greater than probably three-fourths of the rest of the world. Should we be giving free money or welfare to a wealthy nation? I don’t think so.
This reminds Muffti a bit of a paragraph in the report by Walt and Mearsheimer from a few years ago:
Total direct U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars.2 Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly oneâ€fifth of America’s foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year.3 This largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain.
Source: Politico.
- Throw the Jew… - 4/10/2013
- Spotlight on Dhu Nuwas - 12/11/2012
- Hate Site of the Weak — Update! - 6/29/2012
Also, any time you quote Walt & Mearsheimer, please remember to point out that their research for their book and articles was shoddy and relied on secondary sources.
This is true about bloggers in general.
Nah, KFJ, you have to admit I’m fabulous.
KFJ, exactly. Anybody who had been around the internet for a while and who read W & M’s initial two articles, upon which their book and entire “Israel Lobby” schtick are based, could easily identify the fact they identified a great deal of their info through internet sources.
Paul at least is prepared to put everything on the table, where spending cuts are concerned. The Tea Party generally seems willing to entertain cuts in such Republican sacred cows as the defense budget.
Rand Paul is set to become the Jesse Helms of the 21st century.
Maybe here’s a way to put what muffti found interesting about this. (a) crazy guy who gets elected and claims, without much resistance at all, to be a representative of tea party views produces a budget proposal that cuts all foreign aid to israel. The guy is not obscure, a news maker (at least in america froylein) and moreover part of the ‘we are good to israel party’. There’s always been people like this around but none for years have had this sort of visibility (and they tend to be house reps not senators since It’s so much easier to get elected. This is interesting because he’s touching on a sacred cow of us politics just like the deficit commission touched on another one – military spending. Put ir this way – the proposal, while it has little hope, would have been unthinkable as something you say in public politics and hope to keep your job. Only left leaning academics would say such things. Which brings muffti to (b) – walt and mearsheimer are academics so no surprise they see Americas responsibilities and interests in a different light. But the justification a prominent GOP senator is giving for withdrawing aid to israel is strangely similar to that given by some lefty academics. If that isn’t a weird convergence, what is???
a news maker (at least in america froylein)
Like Octomom?
He can’t be of any real political relevance otherwise he’d have made the news over here.
I rest my case.
Keep in mind that this Rand Paul guy is the goofus who rose to the occasion of being nominated by declaring constitutionally questionable the Civil Rights Acts of c. 1964 that barred discrimination against blacks. I’m sure lots o’ private restaurant owners felt vindicated or something.
Here‘s the most recent particle of goofy shit the guy’s been up to.
Unfortunately, while the audacity of his specific proposals stand out, the quality of thought (or lack thereof) behind them are all too typical of his caucus. Enjoy the crazy!
Mearsheimer and Walt? That was soooo 2006. America has the attention span of a two-year old and that is why policy proposals should never be taken seriously – least of all by the furthest fringe element of the Party Hardy Tea Partiers. You guys are so damn Canadian, sheesh….
AlexK: offensive? i’m just kidding is all. I’ll change tea bag to camel toe k? who doesn’t love a quality camel toe? who?
(muffti doesn’t make the graphics).
I appreciate the clarification except that I believe you are incorrect about a few things, not to mention that offensive Teabagger reference in your graphic.
1. Rand Paul was CLEARLY very heavily supported by SOME tea party organizations in HIS STATE. Rand was even asked if his ideas were like his father’s (clearly they are) and he lied saying they were unique. Clearly, the Paulnut doesn’t fall far from the tree.
2. Ceasing foreign aid to countries where there were no benefits to the US for doing so is a popular tea party position, NOT to alies like Israel.
But I wouldn’t expect someone who was clearly anti-tea party before they even understood what it was to be objective and honest about it. 🙂 By the way, who do you think is the intended recipient of a tea bag from tea baggers?
Not a bad idea, AlexK, we’re all pretty shifty here…Muffti didn’t mean to imply that Rand Paul is anti-israel — he’s willing to take RP at his word that the concerns are purely deficit related.
But point well taken – Muffti was generalizing unfairly and that’s not cool. He asks for your apology. Rand Paul was CLEARLY very heavily supported by the various tea party organizations, he was pretty anti-foreign aid generally beforehand (a popular tea party position) but the specific mention of israel is at least so far unique to him.
Now you are just being extra disingenuous. Rand Paul may claim to be the Tea Party candidate but he no more represents the Tea Party than he does the GOP. And I’m pretty confident that there are more supporters of Israel amongst the Tea Party than amongst American Jews in general. Guess I’ll go start my own blog so I can play games too. First post will be: “Jewlicious staff’s dishonesty” and it will accuse all bloggers here based only on Grand Muffti’s one post. And I’m sure I’ll find the same amount of suckers to believe it.
Seriously, this is a great slap in the face to many Tea Partiers who for no reason but logic and ethics, support Israel, only to have someone who could use that support to try to tarnish their reputation. Apparently, you must believe Israel can’t benefit from the support of anyone not coy or smug enough to appear on the daily show. Perhaps you should of written this as a press release over at the ADL so we can win over even more friends.
Alex muffti realized exactly what you said and changed it quick. But not fast enough.
Tm, muddy wasn’t quoting w&m as authorities, merely noting a similarity between the claims of two very different sources. Nor was muffti endorsing these guys’ claims.
Um, Muffti, the per capita income is not as relevant as the total GDP and the percentage of the state’s annual budget that needs to be spent on security. Israel receives support because the US concedes that it’s important for Israel to maintain a military edge over its enemies. Considering that the Saudis are in the process of getting a $60 billion arms deal closed with the US, a price tag that represents about 5 years of total Israeli defense allocations, you can see that even if Israel’s per capita income places it among other advanced nations, the problem is that their per capita expenditures on defense are extraordinarily high.
Also, any time you quote Walt & Mearsheimer, please remember to point out that their research for their book and articles was shoddy and relied on secondary sources.
Time to make the Haredim get jobs..
Rand and Ron Paul are really their own cult. Not representative of the Tea Party, who seem fairly pro-Israel.
Rand Paul = the GOP now?
If I can find you 2 or more Dems that have called for aid to be cut to Israel, will you write a post titled “Israeli Welfare and the Dems”?
That’s a sensationalist title and you know it. The GOP in general has been far more supportive of aid to Israel than the Dems. Furthermore, support for Israel is much higher from the right than from the left, but in typical fashion, this blog operates for one perspective, the traditionalist American Jewish one that avoids logic for tradition. Meanwhile, most of you vote for Obama and an idiot like Rand Paul an his father’s stupid perspective let’s you feel better about it.