Ron Paul's presidential campaign, while bringing an exciting visibility for libertarian ideas, is also an utter disappointment on several levels. A lot has been said recently about his affiliation with paleolibertarians and courting of the ultra right, and how this old decision of his and of his "handlers" at the von Moses Institute misrepresented and hurt the image of libertarians. However, for those willing to look past his "youthful" indiscretions, his campaign provided an interesting opportunity to talk about distinctions between conservative and libertarian positions on American place in the world. This is a large topic, and here I want to focus on only one issue: American relations with Israel. Apparently, I cannot agree with Paul's anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian position, but I think that his candidacy provided an opening for honest discussion of this issue. Unfortunately, this opportunity has not been seized by the pro-Israel camp, whose attitude was that it is so obviously wrong that there is nothing to talk about.
Unfortunately, for a large part of electorate it is not so obvious as Paul's surge in the polls demonstrate. Candidacy of Ron Paul brought to the surface uneasiness of American population about US foreign policy in general and US -Israel relations, in particular. He essentially gave political cover and the aura of respectability to views, which lurked for many years under the surface of public debate, expressed mostly by both right- and left-wing fringe elements. These views can be shortly summarized in the following statement: America has no true national interest in allying itself with Israel, and America (and the world) would have been better off if Israel somehow disappeared. Proponents of these views believe that USA supports Israel only because American politicians are controlled by all-powerful Jewish lobby empowered by Jewish money and Jewish press.
As repugnant these views can be for supporters of Israel, I believe that they must be openly discussed and refuted on strictly rational grounds by explaining to Americans why allying itself with Israel, USA, first of all, serves its own self-interest.
One can discern several narrative lines of non-Jewish supporters of Israel. The one coming from evangelicals justifies support for the Jewish State by their faith in the coming of the prophet, which is hardly constitute the basis for rational discussion. Another is based of the notion that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and is coming out of the people who do not believe in the possibility of peaceful co-existence with Islam. While this narrative is more rational, it's rationale is hardly sustainable politically and economically. Bush understood it as he went out of his ways to distinguish the war on terror from the war on Islam. However, in the absence of the global war with Islam, the justification for friendship with Israel based upon commonality of the enemy becomes significantly weaker.
Yet another narrative in favor of US-Israel alliance is based on the notion that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and for this reason alone deserve to be supported by US. This argument, which is not completely without merit, is based on the idea that only countries politically, economically, and ideologically compatible with the North-Atlantic type of societies do not present a threat to US and should be, therefore, be supported. While it is hard to argue that alliances between countries are forged on the ground of common interests, which often, while not always, arise from shared ideas about society and economy, it is not quite obvious how this argument applies to Israel. Indeed, let's us not to forget that Israel was created by socialists with the idea of creating a socialist state. Present day Israel is not of course a socialist paradise of centrally planned economy, but it is also very far from Anglo-Saxon economic model in its American reincarnation. I think that under different circumstances, Israel would have been a darling of left-wing liberals with its supers-strong labor unions, socialized medicine, and extensive social safety net. Why liberals choose to support Palestinians rather then Israel is a different story, which I partly discussed here.
Unfortunately, I am yet to find a satisfactory rational explanation of the US-Israel relationship based upon clearly formulated American interests. I do not fill competent enough in these issues to give here any positive version of such an explanation, but I fell that any attempts to justify US-Israel alliance based upon ideas of "moral obligations" or such are demeaning to Israel, and cannot be used as basis for foreign policy in any region, leave alone the one as controversial as Middle East. I am positive, however, that US does have crucial interest in maintaining friendship with Israel, and I call on those more knowledgeable in this problem to invest time and efforts into actually explaining it to American public.
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