A former US Senate candidate says Republican Senator Rand Paul, a potential contender for the 2016 presidential elections, has sold himself to the Israel lobby, becoming the Neville Chamberlain of the libertarian movement.

Mark Dankof, a political commentator and broadcaster in San Antonio, Texas, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Wednesday while commenting on independent US Senator Angus King’s warning to Republican senators against their efforts to sabotage Iran nuclear negotiations.

In a bizarre move on Monday, a group of 47 Republican senators ignored protocol and sent an open letter to Iran, warning that whatever agreement reached with President Barack Obama would be a “mere executive agreement” that could be revoked “with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.”

“I think Senator King of Maine is essentially correct that you’ve got 47 Republican senators who are playing fast and free with the Constitution of the United States and with the national security of the American people, and they’re doing this on the behest of the Zionist state of Israel,” Dankof said.

Cotton, a freshman senator from Arkansas, drafted the much-criticized letter. He claimed that the letter has more support in the US Congress than the Republican senators who have signed it.

“Tom Cotton obviously of Arkansas has currently been purchased by the million dollars he received from the Emergency Committee for Israel, that is Bill Kristol’s group, just before the last election,” Dankof said.

On Tuesday, the New York Daily News denounced the 47 Republican senators as “traitors” for writing letter to Iran. The Manhattan-based newspaper used its front page to condemn the Republicans for sending the letter to Iran’s leaders.

The tabloid's front page prominently featured Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senators Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Rand Paul.

Commenting to Press TV, Dankof said, “The 47 Republican senators in all likelihood had violated the Logan Act, which, if understood properly, would suggest very strongly that there may be a legal case against these Republican senators in regard to having committed treason.

“But the real story, the real story in this whole thing is the fact that Rand Paul has sold out the libertarian and paleoconservative wing of the Republican Party and he has been purchased by the Israel lobby.

“There have been a series of things that have led up to this:

“Rand Paul changed his position on foreign aid to Israel after taking a trip to Israel on Mr. Netanyahu’s expense.

“Secondly, Rand Paul was seen, along with every other presidential contender, in the presence of Sheldon Adelson, the Zionist donor of the Sands Casino in Las Vegas, who, of course, has been bankrolling every serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination in the last election as well as the one that is upcoming.

“And, finally, this letter, this Tom Cotton letter signed by these 47 Republican senators, including Rand Paul, which indicates that his cooptation by Israel is absolutely complete.”

Dankof said Paul’s betrayal of libertarian and paleoconservative values is “the biggest story here.”

“People can understand the context of this if they go to antiwar.com and read what Justin Raimondo has said on Rand Paul today in a piece that’s titled, Rand Paul’s Munich.

“I agree with Justin Raimondo: ‘Rand Paul has essentially become the Neville Chamberlain of the American right.’”

Arthur Neville Chamberlain was a British Conservative politician who became prime minister of the UK in the late 1930s.

Chamberlain is known for his appeasement foreign policy, particularly for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938 that conceded the German speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler’s Germany.

GJH/GJH