A high-profile group within the Democratic Party has condemned the Republicans for planning to air a video tribute to Representative Ron Paul at their national convention, saying it is unacceptable to pay tribute to Paul given his foreign policy positions and "dangerous" for presidential candidate Mitt Romney to maintain any link with the Texas congressman.

What is Paul’s fault? He has regularly opposed US foreign policy and wars in general, but it is his criticism of US-Israeli ties as well as his 2009 criticism of the then-ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip in an appearance on Iranian television that has earned him particular scorn from both Republicans and Democrats.

“Paying tribute to this man who disparaged the US-Israel relationship on Iranian television … is a national disgrace,” the National Jewish Democratic Council said in a statement.

From the very outset, it was known that Paul stood little chance of gaining his party’s presidential nomination because of his criticism of Israel and wars in general.

Paul has a long record of being a libertarian.

In his 2009 comment on Iran’s Press TV, he noted that Israel was spending US money and using US weapons against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which he described as a “concentration camp,” and the US administration of George Bush had “encouraged” the Jewish state to do so.

Addressing Israel-US relations, Paul said, “I think if we weren’t in the Middle East, there would be a much greater motivation for Israel to deal with all the people…Maybe they would be talking to the Arab League every single day to work out problems. But they don’t have the motivation because they know we’ll back them up.”

According to Paul’s former aide, Eric Dondero, the elderly congressman “wishes the Israeli state did not exist at all.”

The congressman’s view, he said, “is that Israel is more trouble than it is worth, specifically to the American taxpayer.”

Paul is one of the few American politicians to express such views in public and most of them dare not even speak their mind in private.

It is not exactly any special respect for Paul that is behind the Republicans’ decision to allow the video tribute to go ahead at a conventional speech. The Republicans do not want Paul to speak his mind about the country’s aggressive foreign policy and about US-Israeli ties.

Matt Brooks, the director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, has admitted that the video tribute was a “small price to pay” for denying Paul a convention speech.

It is definitely not the first time that US politicians have been “punished” for criticising foreign policy and ties with Israel, and it will not be the last either.