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May 9, 2024 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
29:11
Killing Fields Of Rafah Become Political Nightmare For Biden

As the Israeli military moves into Rafah, the former "safe haven" for displaced Palestinians from elsewhere in Gaza, against the expressed wishes of the Biden Administration, a new poll shows how much Biden's Israel policy is hurting him with voters. Does he have any moves? Also today: WHO "pandemic treaty" rears its ugly head. Can these authoritarians be stopped?

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Rafah Prison Crisis 00:14:27
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you this morning.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
Are you all set to go and solve some problems?
I hope so.
At least we offer things.
You can't say, I have the answers, and you're going to listen to me and you're going to do it.
It doesn't work that way.
So, in spite of all the problems we have, and sometimes we're sort of down because the world isn't being saved quickly enough, actually, I think we do contribute to the process in our quiet way and talking about what really needs to be done.
We have at least three or four in Congress that sort of agrees with us.
But we need a lot more people, but I believe they're out there.
And I happen to believe that there's not just a few hundred, there's a couple thousand that listen to us each day, looking for hints as to what is really going on in the world, economically, and of course, foreign policy.
But today, we do want to start off with something dealing with foreign policies that have been in the news.
It's a serious problem, and it's not going to go away quickly.
And that is the Middle East, the crisis going on between Israel and Gaza.
You know, this is a real mess.
And the headline we have here is 600,000 Palestinian kids in Rafah can't evacuate safely, UNICEF official says.
So the officials are saying, look at this mess.
But they hardly ever get around to points that we generally try to make on all these issues is how did we get here?
Where is the problem?
Everybody's talking, what do you do?
What do you do?
Whose side are you on?
Who's going to get the bombs?
Who's going to get the money?
Where are the troops going to go?
And then they argue what they're going to do and waive this wand and solve all the problem.
Rather than at least given a little bit of consideration, how do we get into this mess?
We just got over.
No, we didn't.
We didn't get over Afghanistan.
And we went 20 years there and look at the money spent.
And actually, it turns out the money spent is way over any estimate.
It's amazing that the system continues.
It's amazing that the dollar continues to function.
But these events can be rather depressing and it's very politicized.
And even in the Democratic Party, the Democrats on the television lately have been bragging about, you know, the Democrats.
We're always, you know, unified.
That's why we do so well.
And that's why we're whipping the Republicans.
And I would say that that's not necessarily true because they have some sharp disagreements.
They're just in a position now when they hook up with some Republicans, they can take over some political power, which is not the answer.
It's the answer for about 30 minutes of the day.
But eventually, Daniel, I'm convinced they're going to have to come around and discuss in a serious manner the foreign policy.
And I know that you can contribute a lot to that debate.
Daniel.
Well, the situation in Rafah is very serious.
It normally had a population of 250,000 people.
But because the Palestinians from elsewhere in Gaza were told that they should go to the Rafah area because they'll be safe there, the population has swollen to 1.4 million people.
And these people that are there as refugees, they don't have proper housing.
They don't have access to water, food, or sanitary facilities.
So they really are like fish in a barrel, even without what's happening right now, which is that Israel decided, well, we told you to go there because it's safe, but you know what?
We're going to attack you anyway.
And so the article that you pointed out was from the intercept written by Jeremy Scahill, and it talks about 600,000 children that are seeking shelter there.
They're refugees there, and they're not able to leave.
And the Israelis are saying, well, we told you guys to leave, you know, and there's nowhere left to go.
And so that's big.
That's a big problem.
Israel's taking control of the border crossing there, and they're not letting in any humanitarian supplies as of right now.
And it's a big problem.
And, you know, I was reading something earlier today, Dr. Paul, that the Israelis in 200 days have dropped 75,000 bombs on Gaza.
And that's more than the U.S. dropped on Iraq in six years.
So that just tells you the scale of the destruction.
So the world is watching what's happening in Rafah.
And we've already had about 35,000 people killed, including at least 14,000 children.
And it looks like it's about to get much worse.
You know, this takeover of Rafah, to me, this looks like it's securing the prison.
And I know if you use the word prison, that can get people upset.
Oh, no, this couldn't possibly be a real prison because these are a lot of bad people and we have to lock them up and this sort of thing.
They go back and forth.
But I know if I happen to be in that group of people that was told when I was in the northern part of Gaza, go move south.
We're going to have a lot of problems up north.
Move south.
So they move south and then that didn't work out.
They had to close the Rafah area.
And then they say, oh, move over, move over.
And you got to move in there.
And we're going to remove one bridge that was a potential way of getting to the outside.
But I don't know whether that's, I'm overstating it.
And people will criticize and say, oh, it's not a prison.
That's not a prison, you know.
But I'll tell you what, it's a prison of consequences.
And if I had the opportunity to say the one thing who caused all of this, I'd have trouble.
I think it's a lot of people involved that believe in political power and are willing to use this power, including our own government, because you can't talk about the wonderments of Israel without assuming the responsibility, no matter what their exclamation is, is that we'll be responsible for all this, except for the money.
And we have to keep sending them money.
So I would say that it's something that it's very evidence that we have the responsibility.
I feel more obligation to talking about our nonsense, our foreign policy, than I am to say, well, I know exactly what the Palestinians have done wrong.
I know what the Israelis have done wrong, and they need to clean up their act and concentrate on that.
It's all right to talk about policy, but I still think that we lack on a self-evaluation, you know, in all our foreign policies therefore, especially over the many years.
Well, I would argue that it's almost worse than a prison, Dr. Paul, because in prison, as unpleasant as it can be, you generally don't have to worry about bombs falling on you at any time of day or night.
So in a way, it's more terrifying than prison.
And as far as the cause, I think you could say certainly a big part of the cause, a big part of the blame goes on the U.S. foreign policy, the interventionist foreign policy.
You know, the U.S., every bomb that's dropped, every liter of gasoline that's expended in every jet is all American.
They're all provided by the United States.
If the U.S. didn't have that kind of interventionist foreign policy, Israel would have to find a way to make peace with its neighbors.
And people argue, well, his neighbors don't want peace.
Well, it's a long story.
But the one thing that we do know for sure without having to try to sort out all the problems there is that we're a big part of keeping people fighting there.
And it's not a healthy thing.
I wanted to mention one thing, Dr. Paul, that's interesting that I had been doing a little bit of reading about yesterday, which is that the Israelis have moved to take over the border crossing at Rafah.
And people would say, okay, well, we understand that.
But what's interesting is that that is a violation of the 1979 Camp David Accords.
And that was a pretty big deal.
That was probably the crowning achievement of President Carter in terms of foreign policy to make peace between Egypt and Israel back in the late 70s.
But one big part of that treaty was that neither party to the treaty agree would move military forces closer to the border without a mutual agreement.
And so the Egyptians have not agreed to have the Israelis come closer to the border.
In fact, they have complained about it and they've threatened to pull out of Camp David.
But Camp David is essentially a peace treaty.
And so therefore, the violation of that treaty by Israel technically could bring Egypt out of state of war with Israel.
Now, Egypt is in no shape to go to war with Israel or anywhere else.
Their economy is in shambles and their military is in pretty bad shape.
Nevertheless, you do see the potential for escalation if Israel continues to violate the Camp David Accords.
Right.
You know, Camp David was well-meaning and there was excitement about it.
You can't say every single thing that has come out of that has been bad.
But I think the breakdown, which is what you're describing, that it's not as secure as it pretended to be.
At the time that was being passed, I think it was in the 70s, and I was in Congress and we talked about it a lot.
And I kept saying, how come it's costing us so money, so much money?
Can you just bribe people to behave themselves?
We'll give you so much money and so much money.
And the bribery, you know, worked for a long time.
But and that's not the biggest issue right now.
But it means that true peace has not existed and it's fragile because what if we do go bankrupt?
What if we are able to do it and we start backing off?
Like now we threaten not to give enough weapons to Israel.
All kinds of things can work.
I had to change this attitude.
So I think there was a bit of relief on Camp David Accords and some good might have come, but it's not long term.
I mean, that is not the way you secure freedom.
You have and peace between two countries.
But that is achievable.
There have been examples, believe it or not, around the world for maybe thousands of years where two different countries and two different cultures, you know, had either written or tacit agreements that what the rules are, and they live a long time.
And sometimes one thing I think a lot of people have noticed is that the closer to home where the decisions are made, the better.
That is, if there's two countries having a problem, the two countries ought to solve the problems instead of going out and finding the United Nations or NATO or somebody else to get involved.
And that's where I think troubles bubble in.
It's intimidation.
People put things aside because, oh, they'll take care of this.
There'll be a conference and we'll have a solve.
But they can't repair the damage done by this interventionism.
And just as you described, the bombs keep falling.
Yeah.
And the heat is on President Biden over this, you know.
And as you suggested, he suspended, apparently, and this was admitted by Secretary Austin yesterday, the U.S. suspended one arms shipment to Israel for a short period of time as a kind of mini protest against the Rafah invasion.
Biden has asked Netanyahu repeatedly to not do it.
And of course, Netanyahu thumbed his nose at him.
So they have suspended one shipment.
But I think the administration is feeling the heat.
And in fact, in our second story, if you're ready to talk about it, there's a new poll that came out and Dave DeCamp wrote it up on anti-war.com.
But it's not good news for President Biden.
And I'll just do the first one from it.
It's a data for progress in Zateo poll that was taken, just released, when it asked if they believed Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.
56% of Democrats, 36% of Independents, and 23% of Republicans said yes.
Terrible news for Biden because it shows the majority, 56% of Democratic voters believe that Israel is committing genocide.
So obviously they would draw the conclusions with Biden's support that Biden is as guilty or at least partly as guilty as the Israelis are.
So bad electoral news, I would say, this latest poll, Dr. Paul.
And I think it's at the poll where the group that was least enthusiastic about a ceasefire were the Republicans.
Yeah.
That's discouraging too, because there have been time when the peace movement was something that the Republicans cherish.
And of course, that goes back and forth.
There was a time when even progressive Democrats were much better at it.
And then they go back and forth depending on the circumstances.
But I think that just is a reflection of not having a basic principle that you're understanding and you follow.
And I think that is what we try to do, that non-intervention is a basic principle.
And it's easily understood.
And it's very successful if people will just agree to that because it would be the voluntary agreement that one side cannot be aggressors against the other.
But that just seems to be way too much because people get greedy, they get aggressive.
And some people think that they believe into the propaganda.
National security is pretty darn important.
And if you don't do this, you're not for national security.
I've been on the receiving end of those complaints a lot of time.
You just have to do that because we have to protect ourselves against all those bad people out there.
But what if we're precipitating their anger?
That's a question they never ask.
Yeah.
And actually, I think the numbers from this poll on ceasefire are pretty good, even for Republicans, because they asked what percentage of voters support a ceasefire.
Hawks Turning Against Ceasefire 00:02:10
And of course, it was very high for Democrats.
83% support a ceasefire in Gaza.
So again, bad news for President Biden.
But 56% of Republicans, that's over half of Republicans who are typically very hawkish when it comes to Israel, now believe there should be a ceasefire.
When you combine all those, it's 70% of all likely voters are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
And according to the poll, that is an increase of 3% from a February poll.
So 67% of all voters wanted a ceasefire in February.
And now that's up to 70.
Not a big chunk, but the numbers are certainly moving in the direction of the Americans being tired of seeing what's happening and seeing this slaughter in real time.
You know, I'm sure there were a lot of polling done in the 60s.
I don't recall so many of them, but the polling is important.
But I think what happens also happened in the 60s is the, let's say, the Republicans who have been very hawkish or the hawks that were gone hoa, you know, as bad as it was getting, you know, over Vietnam, the quieter the hawks became.
And I think you didn't hear from them.
But the one thing that's still annoyed to live in side of me is when getting to Washington and dealing with these people, sometimes they'd even say it on the house floor, but most of the time they whisper, our biggest problem is we just didn't, you know, kill enough Vietnamese.
You know, we didn't finish the job.
Don't you hear that now about we have to finish the job, you know, on the Palestinians?
I mean, there are people that they all have to go.
And that it is, it's just so discouraging that that is the way they look at it.
But there is a lot of people now.
I think those numbers might even be a little bit better, will get better, but they generally don't want to look badly to those people who are still the hawks out there.
But then there's also the group that are hawks and have been frightened into taking that position because they don't want to be unpatriotic.
Covid Controls and Property Rights 00:09:35
That is also a problem.
Yeah.
And the third area of this poll that is also very interesting is that the poll found that 55% of Democratic voters and a majority of Democratic voters disapprove of the crackdowns on the student protests around the country, the protests against Israel's attacks on Gaza.
And if you say that number, well, it doesn't seem super high, but if you think about the propaganda that's out there maligning a lot of these students, a lot of out-and-out lies said about the students, about them being violent protests.
They're not violent until the cops come.
So even this is bad news for Biden cracking down on the student protests that are just growing across the country.
I still argued the case, and I agree with what you say, but I argued the case that part of the problem, yes, of course, we're libertarians and we want people to be able to speak out.
But once you get the government involved in ownership, I thought about this many years ago when I thought about government schools in a simple way.
What do you do if you have the government schools?
Do you have a dress code?
Or can kids just walk in and be a bunch of bums?
And, you know, aren't there rules that they have to follow?
And therefore, well, then you're violating their civil liberties.
And there is a point where it's virtually impossible to satisfy both sides.
You know, the ownership of the facility at the same time, what is the proper activity?
How should be people acting?
And I think the lack of a concept of private property ownership, because if you think under the circumstances, this is public property and this is the only way people can, you know, resist and speak out against what the government is doing.
But what if you were down to the point where you owned a house and you had an ability to put out on your internet propaganda that was not benefit people didn't agree with.
So they still don't have the right.
If it's your house and you're putting out and you're the propaganda and you're saying these things, they don't have the right to come into your house to take it away.
And they don't even have the right to skit in your yard and destroy your property.
So, but that's a whole different system compared to what we have because we have a system where it's known that the government is there to protect everybody.
And of course, it ends up eventually that nobody gets protected.
And that's why I think we have so many problems, especially you can see that in the Middle East.
Yeah, at the same time, though, I think the students are on the right side of history.
I mean, just like they were in the 1960s when they protested the Vietnam War, they wanted an end to the killing and they wanted an end to U.S. involvement, U.S. government involvement in the killing.
So the way they're doing it, maybe they're certainly can be objected to.
Some of the things they say are probably not things that we would say.
But at the end of the day, obviously, I think it's appropriate to protest U.S. involvement in the killing.
And I would like to see, there's a lot of complaints that there are a bunch of leftists.
I'm frankly disappointed that there aren't pro-life conservatives out there.
I mean, if you're talking about 15,000 kids getting killed, if you're pro-life, you should be out there protesting too, I think.
Well, I think under the circumstances, that's what's available to them.
I mean, you can't say, oh, why don't you wait until all the schools are private?
Our private schools aren't dealing with some of the problems the government schools are into now.
But I think it's an opportunity to make the point that why have we conceded so much to the government?
And when you look at, you know, look at what the government did.
And there was a political argument too under COVID, you know, and who, which position are you going to stand on?
Are you going to, you know, fight it off?
And that problem is going to exist, but it will not be solved as long as you have government property.
And then there's a big fight on who owns the property and how do we take care of it.
And we can talk about, you know, free expression and we can talk about it.
And it's very important.
And we have to be able to get the message out because the message will come out.
You can't silence the people.
And I'm just thinking about why it's compounded.
And it is compounded because government controls everything.
You know, a lot of people have made the case.
How did, you know, some of the difficulties in regulating speech over the radio?
Well, it was the radioactive meant that people couldn't own it.
They didn't have ownership, you know, of radio.
Everything was the government.
And, you know, there were a lot of people who made a lot of money in politics that were able to get that license for this broadcast.
And I think you have to deal with that if you're looking for a better society.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, you brought up COVID, and that's a good segue to our next topic that we want to talk about, Dr. Paul.
And that's the World Health Organization.
They played a very malicious role during COVID.
They're a malignant organization.
They're a totalitarian organization.
And as we saw on an article that was featured on Zero Hedge called RFK Warns, the World Health Organization is on the verge of passing its pandemic treaty.
They are not about to back off, Dr. Paul, even though everything they recommended or demanded during COVID was a disaster.
They are not dissuaded.
They want to pass a new treaty for future pandemics.
There's going to be an even worse crackdown.
You know, and this is an example that makes my point about taking over.
This is an example further taking over of the practice of medicine instead of honoring and protecting the doctor-patient relationship and getting the government out of making it a political football.
This is the Cathata thing that you end up with.
And right now, you would think with the total failure of the medical advice given by these pro-COVID people in lockdown, you'd think they would back off a little bit.
And some have.
But just think of the physicians that stood their ground and lost their jobs and all.
And there's still a lot of that sentiment.
And this is why, this is why I really feel badly.
You know, RFK probably doesn't have a perfect position on this.
And we probably would have some disagreement.
But the abuse that he gets because he suggests maybe there's something screwy about inoculations.
Maybe the pharmaceutical industry has more power.
That's what has to be acknowledged.
But instead of arguing the issue, what they have to do is try to destroy the character of RFK, and that's wrong.
Yeah, and he's been very good on this.
And there are some things that unfortunately have been a disappointment.
And the article points out in his presidential campaign, some positions, but this is one where he's been very good from the beginning.
He's been fighting this WHO treaty.
And according to the article that we've read, they keep trying to revise the treaty and they want to go ahead and try to get it passed, I think, this month.
But what they've been, previous versions of the treaty, it's enough to make your stomach curdle because it says they include giving the WHO the power to issue binding directives, what?
To disregard considerations for human rights and to act on the basis of potential health emergency, impose digital vaccine passports, and conduct mass censorship to fight what they deem to be misinformation.
This sounds like the stuff they did during COVID, but on steroids.
You know, that paragraph that you quote from that really tells you why we should be awake.
We should wake the people up and how terrible it is.
But once again, it's the whole principle.
They shouldn't be there.
Shouldn't be a who organization that deals with this.
We shouldn't have national health care.
Does it help everybody get better health care at the best price?
No.
It'd be like saying, you know, the best way to distribute cell phones, because everybody should have a cell phone for protection.
You know, every kid when he's six has to know how to use a cell phone.
And some kids can't, you know, pay for it.
So we have to make cell phones free and the government will pay for it.
So they just get off on tangents on that, whether it's medical care or whatever it is, you know, food.
And you think, well, it has a good, well, a good intention.
But what if the good intentions are fake?
What if they backfire?
What if it's on, you know, you have to steal in order to try to carry some of these things out?
Does it justify stealing and robbery in order to force a system like this?
Is it worth eliminating your civil liberties and telling doctors, well, you can't have a relationship with your patients and making decisions to use ivermectum?
That's a crime.
Of course, fortunately, some sanity has come to that, but that's what happens.
Supporting Thomas Massey 00:02:52
And that sentiment is there.
And I think this argument over this treaty, they're getting ready to do this treaty in spite of all the evidence.
They're getting ready to pass this treaty and make it all worse.
So hopefully we can wake up a few people.
Yeah, the only who I support is the one founded by Pete Townsend.
But I'm going to close out, Dr. Paul.
We're getting down to the bottom of the hour.
And I just want to mention something I saw just literally as we were about to click and go live, which is that our good friend and RPI board member Thomas Massey, representative from Kentucky, he put out a tweet saying that APAC has announced a $300,000 ad buy against him in the upcoming elections.
And he said it's the day after he voted to remove Speaker Johnson from the chair.
And so I think people that support him should know that.
Thomas Massey is in no way, shape, or form anti-Israel.
His votes are to not send aid there, but his votes are to not send aid anywhere to any foreign country.
So he's not singling out Israel.
And his votes on some of the speech, the speech censorship bills that have come out have been on the side of the Constitution.
So if you support the Constitution and you support a non-interventionist foreign policy that doesn't pick and choose, but puts America first, then I just would encourage all of our viewers, Dr. Paul, and I know you agree with me, do what you can to support Thomas Massey.
He's a decent man.
He's a great man.
And he's really one of our few hopes left in the U.S. House.
Yeah, Thomas is a good friend and brings back a memory when he was coming into Congress as I was leaving.
And I think he got seated before the end of the year, like a couple of weeks earlier, because somebody had left a position.
So he came in.
So we were in Congress together about three or four days.
And we laugh about that.
But we were very anxious to see Thomas in there.
And he has not let us down, I'll tell you.
So we need more people like Thomas in the Congress.
And some people, you know, and I say it all the time, you know, the Congress, Thomas, as good as he is, he's not going to have his way, but he's going to have an influence.
The influence is what counts long term, but he can't, you know, see, see, when you see this power struggle out there and how out of touch they are, and they're usually willing to do anything to keep their political power, then it's very difficult.
So you're right, Daniel, in applauding Thomas.
I want to also thank our viewers for tuning in today to the Ron Paul Liberty Report.
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