I’m not sure he doesn’t care about those things. Not sure at all. As I said, if he’s such an imbecile as to believe 9/11 was blowback rather than Islamic imperialist aggression, then he’s got the right mindset needed for trying to “fix relations with the Muslim world” on the Jewish State’s expense.

I don’t trust him on foreign policy one tiny bit.

“He’ll be busy trying to be the President of a country with a 21st Century multi-trillion dollar economy without a central banking structure…”

We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one, because I for one am no expert on economics, you may not be either, and in fact even experts on economics have as much idea as to the best economic policy as we non-experts do.

My misgivings about Ron Paul are as far as foreign policy is concerned. I think he’d make a good Secretary of Treasury, but that’s my economic opinion talking—I’m for free market capitalism with the one and only reservation of protectionism, and that’s Paul’s stance too.

It’s a characteristic of Israeli Jews that they are capable of harboring totally disparate opinions about economics and foreign policy. That’s how you got the J14 social protests in Israel, which baffled both left- and right-wing American observers because they were demonstrations for the welfare state but made absolutely no mention of the issue of the Jewish–Arab Conflict.

“But where you see Muslim appeasement, I see a naive, but principled ‘hands off’ isolationist approach to world affairs.”

I don’t see how isolationism is compatible with pressuring Israel to lay off construction in Judea and Samaria. Isolationism means you disentangle your foreign policy, among others by means of cutting aid to all parties involved, and let those parties duke it out however they wish while you take care of your problems at home. Both the Iraq invasion and occupation and the pressure on Israel to make a “peace agreement” are in violation of the principle of isolationism.

I’m all for the idea, voiced by a lot of Americans, that the U.S. is tired of being the world’s cop. You want to take a rest, you have the right to that. But, whether it’s Bush, Obama or Paul in the White House, I don’t see that idea being translated into comprehensive reality any time soon.

No, I don’t think Ron Paul is sincere either, with regard to his foreign policy statements. I have no problem with the idea of Israel being weaned off of U.S. aid (one less club for the Jewish State to be beaten with), but I’m not at all sure that’s all he wants to do. Given his DailyKos-like statements to the effect that the U.S. is to blame for all Islamic imperialist aggression directed at it (“9/11 was blowback,” to use his terminology), it’s reasonable to think he can be equally DailyKos-like in wishing to appease the Muslims on the expense of the tiny, land-poor Jewish State.

“Obama at least cares about the support from people who care about Israel.”

On his first term, maybe. I’m not betting on the situation staying the same on a second term—presidents no longer bound by re-election considerations tend to show their true selves.