Ron Paul on Hamas and blowback (2009)

[Paul’s 2009 comments came as he rose in opposition to House Resolution 34, “Recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza, reaffirming the United States’ strong support for Israel, and supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.”]

I rise in opposition to this resolution, not because I am taking sides and picking who the bad guys are and who the good guys are, but I'm looking at this more from the angle of being a United States citizen, an American.  And I think resolutions like this really do us great harm.

In many ways, what’s happening in the Middle East, in particular with Gaza right now, we have some moral responsibility for both sides in a way because we provide help and funding for both Arab nations and Israel.  We have a moral responsibility, especially now today the weapons being used to kill so many Palestinians are American weapons and American funds are being used for this.

But there’s a political liability, which I think is something we fail to look at because too often there’s so much blowback from our intervention in areas that we shouldn’t be involved in.

You know Hamas, if you look at the history, you’ll find out that Hamas was encouraged and really started by Israel because they wanted Hamas to counteract Yasser Arafat.

You say, "Well, yeah, it was better then and served its purpose, but we didn’t want Hamas to do this." So then we, as Americans, say, "Well, we have such a good system; we’re going to impose this on the world.  We’re going to invade Iraq and teach people how to be democrats.  We want free elections."  So we encouraged the Palestinians to have a free election. They do, and they elect Hamas.

So we first, indirectly and directly through Israel, helped establish Hamas.  Then we have an election where Hamas becomes dominant, then we have to kill them.  It just doesn’t make sense.  During the 80s, we were allied with Osama bin Laden and we were contending with the Soviets.  It was at that time our CIA thought it was good if we radicalize the Muslim world.  So we finance the Madrassas school to radicalize the Muslims in order to compete with the Soviets.  There is too much blowback.

There are a lot of reasons why we should oppose this resolution.  It’s not in the interest of the United States, it is not in the interest of Israel either.

~ Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), speech on House floor, 2009