'Ron Paul wishes Israel didn't exist'

Senior former aide to GOP presidential hopeful says that Paul is not a Jew hater, he just believes Israel is 'more trouble than it's worth'

WASHINGTON – Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul negates Israel's right to exist, Eric Dondero, who served as a senior aide to the 76-year-old Texas congressman for over 12 years, said on Monday.

In a blog posted in Rightwing News, Dondero said that while Paul was, in his opinion, neither a racist nor an anti-Semite, he is very much anti-Israel.

"I worked for the man for 12 years (and) I never heard a racist word expressed towards Blacks or Jews come out of his mouth… I can categorically say that I never heard anything out of his mouth, in hundreds of speeches I listened to over the years, that could be called, anti-Semite," he writes.

But according to Dondero, the elderly congressman "wishes the Israeli state did not exist at all."

The congressman's former aide insists in his blog that Paul expressed the controversial sentiment "numerous times in our private conversations."