Ron Paul 2009 Warning Revisited as He Claims Israel and U.S. Policy Helped Create Hamas

 

In a 2009 statement that drew sharp backlash at the time, former Texas congressman Ron Paul argued that U.S. foreign policy — closely aligned with Israel — played a direct role in the rise of militant Islamist groups, including Hamas and al-Qaeda.

Paul stated that Hamas was not simply an organic resistance movement, but a group that Israeli authorities initially tolerated and indirectly encouraged in its early years as a counterweight to the secular Palestine Liberation Organization. According to Paul, this strategy served Israel’s short-term political interests by weakening Palestinian nationalist unity, but ultimately empowered a far more radical and violent force.

“Hamas was encouraged and supported in its infancy because it was seen as useful,” Paul said at the time, arguing that the policy backfired by fueling extremism and perpetual conflict. He described the outcome as a classic example of blowback — a recurring theme in his critique of U.S. and allied intelligence operations.

Paul connected that dynamic to broader U.S. actions in the Muslim world, particularly during the Cold War, when Washington supported Islamist fighters in Afghanistan to undermine Soviet influence. He argued that this approach laid the foundation for transnational jihadist movements such as al-Qaeda, which later turned their focus against the United States.

In his 2009 remarks, Paul also warned that similar tactics were being used as part of a long-term geopolitical struggle involving Russia. He claimed U.S. policymakers repeatedly viewed militant groups as disposable tools in great-power competition, ignoring the long-term consequences once those groups gained strength and autonomy.

Paul sharply criticized unconditional U.S. military and financial support for Israel, arguing it enabled policies that intensified civilian suffering and provided extremist organizations with powerful recruitment narratives. He said American taxpayers were being drawn into conflicts that undermined U.S. security rather than protecting it.

At the time, Paul’s comments were denounced by critics as misleading or inflammatory, while supporters said he was highlighting uncomfortable historical realities rarely acknowledged in mainstream debate. Paul maintained that recognizing these policy failures was not an attack on Israel or the American people, but a necessary step toward ending cycles of violence.

More than a decade later, Paul’s 2009 warning continues to circulate as conflicts in Gaza and the broader Middle East persist, raising renewed questions about whether decades of intervention, proxy warfare, and strategic manipulation have produced stability — or helped create the very threats they were meant to stop.