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The Dumb Drive to Defund Palestine

Once again we are presented with a dumb "pro-Israel" proposal that will make conditions worse for all involved.

Rand Paul has proposed a terrible idea:

Sen. Rand Paul introduced legislation on Wednesday aiming to block U.S. funding to the Palestinian Authority until its leaders withdraw their request to join the International Criminal Court.

“Certainly groups that threaten Israel cannot be allies of the U.S. I will continue to do everything in my power to make sure this President and this Congress stop treating Israel’s enemies as American allies,” Paul said according to a press release.

Paul is badly wrong about this for a number of reasons. For starters, cutting off funds to the Palestinian Authority for seeking recourse through international institutions is a lousy way to respond to a diplomatic initiative. It would tell the P.A. that it can’t seek redress through peaceful means, either, which makes a mockery of the frequent “pro-Israel” demand that Palestinians pursue a non-violent path towards statehood. It tells Palestinians that every initiative that seeks recognition of their statehood will result in punitive measures, which can only strengthen the hand of fanatics and hard-liners. Doing this would make the likelihood of an eventual political settlement even more remote than it is now. Further, it would make the already egregiously one-sided U.S. involvement in this conflict even more heavily lopsided in favor of Israel.

Withdrawing aid from the P.A. at this time could also have very real and dangerous consequences for both Israelis and Palestinians. Defunding the P.A. would make it less effective in cooperating on security and would undermine it politically. The only immediate beneficiary of these developments would be Hamas. This argument against defunding used to have some sway in Congress, but as John Hudson reports today it longer does. So once again we are presented with a dumb “pro-Israel” proposal that will make conditions worse for all involved.

As for the politics of Paul’s support for this, it’s a lose-lose proposition for him. No “pro-Israel” hawks trust Paul on anything related to Israel anyway. Some of that is simply irrational loathing for what they think Paul’s “real” views must be, and some of it reflects the fact that they will be satisfied by nothing short of taking a hard line on every issue in the region, but Paul stands to gain nothing from this. Meanwhile, he is just giving his potential supporters yet another reason to dismiss him as an increasingly conventional Republican. That he is making a point of taking the lead in promoting such bad legislation only makes things worse, since he clearly thinks this is something to boast about.

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