Can We Achieve Peace in the
Middle East?
by Ron Paul
by Ron Paul
Former President Carter’s new book about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine has raised the ire of Americans on two sides of the debate. I say “two sides” rather than “both sides,” because there is another perspective that is never discussed in American politics. That perspective is the perspective of our founding fathers, namely that America should not intervene in the internal affairs of other nations.
Everyone assumes America must play the leading role in crafting some settlement or compromise between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But Jefferson, Madison, and Washington explicitly warned against involving ourselves in foreign conflicts.
The conflict in Gaza and the West Bank is almost like a schoolyard fight: when America and the world stand watching, neither side will give an inch for fear of appearing weak. But deep down, the people who actually have to live there desperately want an end to the violence. They don’t need solutions imposed by outsiders. It’s easy to sit here safe in America and talk tough, but we’re not the ones suffering.
Practically speaking, our meddling in the Middle East has only intensified strife and conflict. American tax dollars have militarized the entire region. We give Israel about $3 billion each year, but we also give Egypt $2 billion. Most other Middle East countries get money too, some of which ends up in the hands of Palestinian terrorists. Both sides have far more military weapons as a result. Talk about adding fuel to the fire! Our foolish and unconstitutional foreign aid has produced more violence, not less.
Congress and each successive administration pledge their political, financial, and military support for Israel. Yet while we call ourselves a strong ally of the Israeli people, we send billions in foreign aid every year to some Muslim states that many Israelis regard as enemies. From the Israeli point of view, many of the same Islamic nations we fund with our tax dollars want to destroy the Jewish state. Many average Israelis and American Jews see America as hypocritically hedging its bets.
This illustrates perfectly the inherent problem with foreign aid: once we give money to one country, we have to give it to all the rest or risk making enemies. This is especially true in the Middle East and other strife-torn regions, where our financial support for one side is seen as an act of aggression by the other. Just as our money never makes Israel secure, it doesn’t buy us any true friends elsewhere in the region. On the contrary, millions of Muslims hate the United States.
It is time to challenge the notion that it is our job to broker peace in the Middle East and every other troubled region across the globe. America can and should use every diplomatic means at our disposal to end the violence in the West Bank, but we should draw the line at any further entanglement. Third-party outsiders cannot impose political solutions in Palestine or anywhere else. Peace can be achieved only when self-determination operates freely in all nations. “Peace plans” imposed by outsiders or the UN cause resentment and seldom produce lasting peace.
The simple truth is that we cannot resolve every human conflict across the globe, and there will always be violence somewhere on earth. The fatal conceit lies in believing America can impose geopolitical solutions wherever it chooses.
January 23, 2007
Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.
6 responses so far ↓
1 m. // Jun 11, 2007 at 1:55 pm
This article is a good example of how the discussion of an issue can be limited by the ways in which rhetoric is used to frame the discussion. This is evident in the title of the article alone.
“Can We Achieve Peace in the Middle East?” is a title full of assumptions and rhetorical tricks that severely limit the discussion and understanding of the U.S. role in the Middle East. Most blatantly, the title begins the discussion with the assumption that we (I suppose this means the U.S. or maybe the “free world”–whatever that means) are actually trying to achieve peace in the Middle East. So, already, the discussion is framed around the unquestioned declaration, the ideological certainty, that “we” are a benevolent nation “trying to resolve human conflict.”
A real examination of the situation in the Middle East and the U.S.’s role in it could never begin with this kind of assumption. Framing a discussion in this way functions to limit the ways in which those involved in the discussion can think about the issue, let alone actually talk about it. This is done constantly in media representations of issues and situations. The ways in which to think about and discuss an issue or topic are defined in its representation and the rhetoric used to rely the “discussion” of the issue or topic.
In other words, if every time you turn on the television, watch a snipet of media about Palestine, and encounter the situation framed in the same discussion–that is, that the U.S. tries to “broker peace”, while Palestinians disrupt this process by “terrorism”, and that Israel must “protect itself”–that is exactly the parameters within which you can view the issue; these are the only references you have access to with which to make sense of the issue. It becomes very difficult to think about or discuss the issue in other ways because they have simply been excluded from the representation of the situation.
This becomes a self-maintaining mechanism. If the understanding of a situation can be restricted to a certain representation that excludes other ways of discussing and thinking about it (and excludes actual information), then that very representation will continue to be repeated by those who have encountered it.
2 william // Sep 6, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Looking back on m’s response, I absolutely agree with it.
I want to point out though that I didn’t ever take the “we” to be anything other than an all inclusive for the people of the world, but I can definitely see m’s point and it makes me really want to know who the “we” is that Ron is referring to in his title.
Oddnoteccentric, what are your thoughts?
3 oddnoteccentric // Sep 6, 2007 at 7:08 pm
I agree with m’s statement. However, I don’t think that response addresses the author’s intent, which is that we are meddling in someone else’s (foreign) affairs. Note that Rep. Paul follows the Constitution of the United States; this document doesn’t allow for this kind of activity (the “brokering” at issue here).
I see that the US government takes a self righteous (so-called benevolent) stance on this issue; we act in a paternalistic manner and I think it should stop. This can be transferred to foreign nations or it can be applied to us states. After all, who knows better than the people on the ground. To quote Colin Powell, “The Commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is always wrong, unless proven otherwise.”
Dr. Paul closed with, “The fatal conceit lies in believing America can impose geopolitical solutions wherever it chooses.” I think these two quotes are synonymous, and my point backs them up.
Let the firestorm begin.
4 william // Sep 21, 2007 at 1:42 pm
I’m not sure what you are meaning by the Collin Powell quote?
Are you making a statement about our troops and their feelings about being in the middle east?
5 oddnoteccentric // Sep 25, 2007 at 3:57 pm
No. I am using Mr. Powell’s words to describe my view about REMFs/armchair quarterbacks/power greedy leaders making judgements about how “the people” live their lives and how those judgements turn into foreign policy or domestic (federal) laws. My paraphrase is this: who would know better how to run his neighborhood than the person in that neighborhood? Is it possible that “the man” knows better? Yes, but highly unlikely. For instance, look at a national speed limit: can Rhode Island sustain a 75mph limit on all highways the way Montana can? Probably not. Laws should be made by and for the people, not the federal gov’t. This applies to foreign nations as well as it does to localities here in our country. To oversimplify, we need to butt out of their business just as the feds need to butt out of ours.
6 william // Sep 25, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Well said.
Thank you.
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