"For years now U.S. financial, military and diplomatic support of Israel has been the central enabling force driving this endless conflict. The bombs Israel drops on the Gazans, and the planes that they use to drop them, and the weapons they use to occupy the West Bank and protect settlements are paid for, in substantial part, by the U.S. taxpayer," Paul said....

Paul has been one of the few voices in Congress advocating a drastic shift in American foreign policy, and on the issue of U.S. support for Israel, Paul's statements and non-interventionist foreign policy could not be more prescient. As the Framers advised in the early days of the republic, entangling political alliances overseas breed military intervention, unnecessary wars, and the accompanying loss of prosperity and civil liberties that the former always bring....

From a purely objective standpoint, one could easily make the case that Israel is not only not an ally of the U.S., but an enemy and a liability. What else would you call a country that bombed the U.S.S. Liberty, stole nuclear secrets from the U.S., routinely spies on us, and has tried multiple times to pose as CIA agents in Iran in order to bring the U.S. into a disastrous military conflict?

Even General David Petraeus, no friend of a non-interventionist foreign policy, admits that Israel is a strategic liability in U.S. dealings with the rest of the region.

The U.S. government should treat Israel like it should treat any other country, with a policy of friendship, trade, and neutrality. No subsidies, special privileges or sanctions. And who knows? Without the U.S. backstop of billions of dollars of aid, weapons, and blind support, perhaps the Israelis would see the folly of permanent occupation of the Palestinians and the wisdom of a long-term cease fire and diplomacy.