Hoppe vs. Block: The Moral Duty to Destroy Hamas

The Classical Liberal Case For Israel
By David Gordon And Wanjiru Njoya

February 2, 2024

In War Guilt in the Middle East (1967) Murray Rothbard observes that libertarians are very clear on the principles of liberty, but less so on the details of specific events:

“Now this kind of insight into the root cause of war and aggression, and into the nature of the State itself, is all well and good … But the trouble is that the libertarian tends to stop there, and evading the responsibility of knowing what is going on in any specific war or international conflict, he tends to leap unjustifiably to the conclusion that, in any war, all States are equally guilty, and then to go about his business without giving the matter a second thought” (p. 21).​

Informing oneself of what is going on in specific conflicts requires a great deal of time and effort, as well as a sound grasp of the relevant history. This is the task to which Walter Block and Alan Futerman apply themselves in the Classical Liberal Case for Israel. The authors’ aim is to defend Israel by reference to classical liberal principles of justice based on self-ownership and private property.

-The authors set out not only to defend Israel, but specifically to offer a defense consistent with classical liberal and libertarian principles of justice. Drawing upon Mises, they ask “What is, then, the bedrock of a free society? Private property.” Further, they take a Lockean view of self-ownership in asking “But what is the fundamental principle behind private property, and therefore, that sustaining a free society? It is Justice.” They trace land titles in the land of Israel to the original acquisition thousands of years ago aiming to show “an unbroken line of succession” since 135 C.E. which they present as proof of Israel’s claim to just possession of the land. They argue that “It was stolen from them some 2000 years ago, and the Hebrews are merely repossessing what would have come down to them in ordinary inheritance practices, from parents to children” (p 300).

“Well, the Romans stole the land from the Jews around two millenia ago; the Jews never gave this land to the Arabs or anyone else. Thus according to libertarian theory it should be returned to the Jews.” (p. 308) …​

In his acknowledgements Walter speaks of his “great love and respect” for Murray Rothbard but adds that “He and I do not agree on the issues covered in this book.” Although much of the Classical Liberal Case for Israel is devoted to setting out the historical claim to land title in Israel, upon closer analysis it soon becomes clear that the authors’ most serious disagreement with Rothbard is not centered on questions related to “what is going on in any specific war”, for example their disagreement on whether Jews paid a fair price for the lands they purchased (p. 39 – 40) or whether the State of Israel is a lesser or greater violator of the non-aggression principle than other states (chapter 3), what really happened at Deir Yassin (p. 268, 269), the degree to which the British are culpable in this dispute (from p. 254) and similar issues. These are all issues on which people can and do disagree on the correct view of the facts. We argue that although the authors depict their disagreement with Rothbard as one concerning the application of libertarian principles of private property, creating the impression that the matter may be settled by “correcting” Rothbard on his understanding of these events, in fact the main thrust of the disagreement between them is one concerning the nature of Zionism. That is not to say that Zionism is the only issue on which the authors disagree with Rothbard (they also disagree, for example, on what is entailed in strike action: p 299), but it is the issue which is most essential in understanding the authors’ critique of Rothbard.

Classical Liberalism, Property Rights and Zionism

The authors argue that a proper understanding of property rights can lead to only one correct view of Zionism. Further, they argue that to oppose the state of Israel is to oppose property rights:

“The right of the Jewish People to inherit and develop the land of their ancestors is so deeply rooted in historical and cultural evidence that to dispute it is simply a farce. It is tantamount to denying the basic rights of private property in a broad sense. That is what the attack against Israel’s legitimacy essentially is—an attack against private property rights generally, for anybody at all.” (p. xxv)

On that basis they argue that Rothbard is wrong about Zionism and thus in their view it follows that Rothbard is also wrong in his application of libertarian principles to the situation in the Middle East. In their view a correct view of Zionism would lead to a correct interpretation of property rights and vice versa. Thus the authors assert that “to be anti-Zionist is to be against the entire concept of private property” (p. xxvi).

Given that Rothbard is clearly not against the entire concept of private property, the authors conclude that Rothbard is “misapplying his own libertarian principles in the course of his invective against this one particular state” (p. 201 n. 15). This brings their argument round full circle – Rothbard’s view of Israel is incorrect, which has caused him to be incorrect in his understanding of the property rights foundations of Israel. But this merely begs the precise question which is in issue between them, as Rothbard does not see Zionism as being in any way conceptually linked to Lockean homesteading principles.

The book is dedicated to Ze’ev Jabotinsky, whose classical liberal views are highlighted by the authors: “Among the different perspectives of Zionism, we find that of Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky and the movement he founded, the Zionist Revisionist, as the best and most compatible with our classical liberal and libertarian approach. Jabotinsky was a classical liberal and thus a champion of individual liberty” (p. 44-46). They discuss in some detail Jabotinsky’s defense of free markets, private property and the minimal state.

Rothbard, by contrast, views Zionism as “committed to the blood-and-soil mystique of Palestine” (1967, p. 23). He regards Jabotinsky and the Zionist Revisionists as militaristic and fanatical, which is almost as far from Lockean homesteading principles as one could conceive.

It is fair to say that Jabotinsky is known less for championing Lockean principles of private property and free markets than for championing the right of Jewish people to a homeland and to defend that homeland by force if necessary. For example, Jabotinsky is quoted by Jake Wallis Simons in his comment on the recent case brought before the ICJ by South Africa as follows:

“We do not have to account to anybody. We are not to sit for anybody’s examination and nobody is old enough to call on us to answer. We came before them and will leave after them. We are what we are, we are good for ourselves, we will not change, nor do we want to.”​

A similar sentiment is reflected in Ted Belman’s review of Block and Futerman’s book:

“Israel can be whatever it wants to be and need not be what others want it to be. Too often demands are made on Israel to behave in a certain way that no one else manages to do. Even the liberal west isn’t liberal. We need not justify ourselves to anyone. Unfortunately for Israel, it is ruled by an extremely liberal court which constantly is at odds with the Knesset. In other words, it is too liberal for the people. Having said that, it is important for Israel to stress her historical and legal claims to the land which this book does admirably. But her existence doesn’t depend on such claims. It depends on the strength of her army and her economy.”​

Indeed so. Wars between nations depend on the strength of their armies and their economies, not on a correct application of homesteading principles. This is reflected in Jabotinsky’s defiant words quoted by the authors:

“How much longer will this go on? Tell me, my friends, are you not tired by now of this rigmarole? Isn’t it high time, in response to all of these accusations, rebukes, suspicions, smears, and denunciations—both present and future—to fold our arms over our chests and loudly, clearly, coldly, and calmly put forth the only argument which this public can understand: why don’t you all go to hell? “What kind of people are we that we have to justify ourselves before them? And who are they to demand it of us? What is the point of this whole comedy of putting an entire people on trial when the verdict is known in advance? How does it benefit us to participate voluntarily in this comedy, to brighten up these villainous and humiliating proceedings with our speeches for the defense? “Our defense is useless and hopeless, our enemies will not believe it, and apathetic people will pay no attention to it. The time for apologies is over” (p. 238)​

It is scarcely credible argue that the key issue here concerns Lockean theories of mixing labor with the land. Jabotinsky’s words may tangentially evoke the Lockean notions of original acquisition which the authors wish to emphasize – “we came before them” – but the overall message of Zionism is not simply or even largely one of property rights and the right of an owner to defend himself and his property – it also reflects the determination to stake a claim to these particular lands under the banner of Zionism, which is why Rothbard refers to it as a kind of “blood and soil mystique”. Indeed as Block and Futerman observe, the case they make is essentially a Zionist case in this broader sense and not merely a case based on Lockean homesteading:

“However, against all of its enemies, the Zionist project and the will of the Jewish people have prevailed. Israel is a strong nation, and the Jews are free in their own land. Zionism has succeeded. Theodore Herzl and Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s dreams of a vibrant Jewish State in its own historical homeland are now a reality. And it will continue to succeed, as the Jewish People always have.” (p. xxvi)​

They also make the point that “if everyone else may form a state, why, then, so may the Jews” and “While Israel as a State is, according to anarcho capitalist libertarian theory, certainly vicious to a degree, it is certainly not “uniquely” pernicious insofar as states go.” Such arguments are not conceptually related to principles of homesteading but are more in the nature of a claim that the legitimacy of the only Jewish state should not be questioned if the legitimacy of all other states is accepted.

The authors are however keen to emphasize that although their book discusses these more general Zionist arguments their goal is not simply to address matters concerning sovereignty or national security but specifically to ground their defense of Israel in libertarian property rights theory. Therefore although the book covers classical liberal arguments about freedom, free markets, individual liberty, Israel’s right to exist and related issues it is primarily on this point, on the concept of private property, that they clash with Rothbard. They do not simply wish to defend Zionism, but to argue that opposing Zionism amounts to opposing private property rights in general.

The case against Rothbard

In attempting to defend Israel by reference to libertarian theory the authors found it necessary to declare Rothbard to be wrong, a matter which they address in detail in chapter 6. Much attention in this chapter is devoted to whether Israel is more or less aggressive than any other state, but comparing Israel to other states has no necessary conceptual connection to a Rothbardian theory of property rights. The Ethics of Liberty is not a war manual and indeed Rothbard’s concern in War Guilt is not with Lockean homesteading but with the NAP and identification of who is the true aggressor in the Middle East. By contrast, the authors’ view is that in any war the only way to ascertain who the aggressor is by reference to principles of original acquisition. The authors consider that principles of property law are the only relevant benchmark by which a libertarian may ascertain war guilt.

The authors therefore argue that Rothbard’s approach is wrong, and that the relevant principle in this context is whether the person launching the attack is trying to steal property or trying to get his own property back. This is the point discussed by Rothbard in the Ethics of Liberty (1998) using the example of a stolen watch:

“Suppose we are walking down the street and we see a man, A, seizing B by the wrist and grabbing B’s wristwatch … we don’t know simply from our observation whether A is indeed a thief, or whether A is merely repossessing his own watch from B who had previously stolen it from him. In short, while the watch had undoubtedly been B’s property until the moment of A’s attack, we don’t know whether or not A had been the legitimate owner at some earlier time, and had been robbed ·by B. Therefore, we do not yet know which one of the two men is the legitimate or just property owner. We can only find the answer through investigating the concrete data of the particular case, i.e., through “historical” inquiry.” (1998 p. 51)​

In War Guilt Rothbard does not regard the Middle East question as analogous to deciding who stole whose watch. In War Guilt Rothbard is concerned with the propensity of all states to aggress against their citizens and he argues that “in virtually every war, one side is far more guilty than the other, and on one side must be pinned the basic responsibility for aggression, for a drive for conquest, etc” (p. 21).

Block and Futerman argue that in War Guilt Rothbard is addressing the wrong issue. Their view is that rather than questioning whether Israel is more guilty than her Arab neighbors (to which their answer is no), Rothbard should instead ask who homesteaded the land of Israel 3,000 years ago. This would lead him to the correct conclusion: that Israel is the true owner and is thus justified in using force to seize back and defend her land.

The authors’ charge against Rothbard is therefore that he does not delve deep enough into the annals of history to ascertain the first owner of the land of Israel:

In the end, Rothbard offers us a stark choice: libertarianism, or support for Israel. Our answer is, both. We think we can have our cake and eat it too, and maintain that we have offered above sufficient reason for this conclusion. Our claim is that Rothbard did not start his analysis as far back into the past as he should have, neither did he analyze the situation before and after the founding of Israel correctly. Had he started about more than two millennia ago as we did, we expect he would have written a very different essay on Israel’s right to exist, and the claim of the Jewish people over the land in contention.” (p. 309)​

The authors argue that their evidence of original acquisition by Israel is conclusive proof of the just entitlement to the land, from which it would follow that there is an entitlement if necessary to seize it and defend it. They argue that “Their goal was not to target or conquer civilian Arab lands, though conquering some areas was a defensive outcome of the War of Independence” (p. 266).

But Rothbard does not regard Zionism as a quest for libertarian justice rooted in private property and Lockean principles, so the authors’ argument that Rothbard erred in failing to trace Lockean acquisition of title back to its origins 3000 years ago merely sidesteps the very issue in dispute: a dispute on the nature of Zionism and whether Zionism is really an ideology rooted in libertarian theories of private property.

Who is the aggressor?

Ultimately, a libertarian case for Israel can only be one that depends, as Rothbard says, on ascertaining which side in a conflict has “the basic responsibility for aggression”. The disagreement between Rothbard and the authors cannot be decided by theoretical analysis of property rights. It can only be decided by ascertaining who is correct on the historical facts. As Rothbard said:

“But in order to find out which side to any war is the more guilty, we have to inform ourselves in depth about the history of that conflict, and that takes time and thought – and it also takes the ultimate willingness to become relevant by taking sides through pinning a greater degree of guilt on one side or the other.” (1967, p. 21).​

The authors assert that “Rothbard begins his analysis on the wrong foot” in attributing blame to Israel, and they regard Rothbard’s views on Zionism as “problematic” (p. 261). They attempt to show that Rothbard failed to understand the historical events he discusses in War Guilt. For example they argue that Rothbard failed to ascertain which specific lands were or were not “occupied” by Palestinians (p. 262) and failed to mention attacks against Jews (from p. 269). But ultimately this is nothing more than a dispute on the accurate interpretation of contested historical facts. It is not a dispute concerning principles of private property. The authors concede as much when they say “[Rothbard] thinks the Jews stole land from the Arabs, and [the Arabs] are justifiably trying to get it back. We, as fellow libertarians, would join him, if we thought his analysis correct … We part company from him, only, because we believe the very opposite: the Jews were the victims of land theft, not the Arabs” (p. 294).

That being the case, the authors have misfired in their claim that Rothbard’s views of Zionism reflect a mistaken application of libertarian principles. They argue that “The point we are making is that Rothbard’s attack on Israel, even if correct (which as we try to show, is not), is irrelevant”. The reasons the Arab nations invaded Israel in 1948 were absolutely unrelated to libertarian theories concerning justice in land titles.” (p. 298). But the authors fail to appreciate that the same is true of Zionism. The beliefs and goals of Zionism are, at best, only tangentially related to libertarian theories concerning just land titles.

Neither of the protagonists fighting over disputed land in the Middle East can credibly claim to be fighting for libertarian principles. As the authors observe “We readily admit that there is no individual Jew who can trace his ownership rights over any specific piece of land from 2000 years ago. And this, indeed, would be the criterion for transfer of land titles if we were discussing individual rights. On the other hand, we can identify specific Jewish groups that have a right to certain areas, such as the Kohanim with the Temple Mount.” (p. 304, 305). In cases where the Jews were dispossessed by the Romans they argue that “The status of legal heir would be determined by the nearest of kin that could be determined genetically as well as culturally. If a plot cannot be attributed to a single heir, it would theoretically go to a group that could apply for equal shares in said land” (p 20). There being little likelihood of a single heir being able to trace his title back to135 C.E it follows that such claims to title would rest on genetic studies of paternal lineage to whom the land would be given (p 21). They suggest that “this could be done by dividing the territory via shares, and giving them to all who test positive for the same genetic markers that indicate shared paternal descent.” (p 22). Any Muslims who claim entitlement to the land would similarly be subjected to genetic testing: “wherever there is evidence of previous Muslim homesteading of land in the State of Israel that is currently occupied by Jews, title should be transferred to Muslims provided that cultural and genetic descent can be similarly proven by the other side” (p 22).

Whatever that theory of justice is, property rights based on ethnicity, DNA and genetic entitlement to ancestral lands corroborated by religious texts and cultural inheritance is not a libertarian theory of private property rights. As such it is the authors’ claims about Lockean homesteading that are irrelevant to Rothbard’s analysis of war guilt.

It is true, as Ayn Rand argued in her own defense of Israel, that liberty is likely to be advanced more by Israel than by the Arab states but that does not in itself mean that a defense of Israel is an application of libertarian principles. Rather, that point merely asserts that libertarian principles are more likely to flourish in Israel than in neighboring states. As Ayn Rand (cited in Rothbard, 1971):

“When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are. Israel is a mixed economy inclined toward socialism. But when it comes to the power of the mind—the development of industry in that wasted desert continent—versus savages who don’t want to use their minds, then if one cares about the future of civilization, don’t wait for the government to do something. Give whatever you can. This is the first time I’ve contributed to a public cause: helping Israel in an emergency.”​

But quite clearly her argument is not predicated upon libertarian principles of justice. Rothbard’s (1971) answer to this was that no reason has been given to justify violation of the non-aggression principle:

“Why? What is the overriding cause for which we must set aside libertarian principle, isolationist principle, and opposition to altruism; why is Israel’s “emergency” to be a claim on our hearts and pockets? Given Miss Rand’s militant atheism, it surely could not be the necessity for the reestablishment of the Temple, or the fulfillment of the old prayer, “next year in Jerusalem”; given her professed individualism, it surely could not be (one hopes) the Zionist call to blood, race, and soil. So what is it? Russia is of course dragged in, but even Miss Rand concedes that the Russian Threat is not the real issue here.”​

The real issue? Because “civilized men” are “fighting against savages”, and when that happens, says Rand, “then you have to be on the side of that civilized man no matter what he is.”

Deciding these types of questions, who is more or less to blame for a particular war and who is the true aggressor falls within the purview of historical analysis, foreign policy and the specific details of particular events rather than a theory of just acquisition of property.

The authors clearly disagree with Rothbard on how historical events unfolded but it does not follow that in a disagreement over who aggressed against whom, one party is defending private property while the other is “against the entire concept of private property.” It is merely a debate over contested facts, or at any rate the significance of contested facts, rather than a debate over the concept of private property.

The question of whether Israel has committed acts of aggression is not reduceable to Lockean homesteading principles, nor can the Ethics of Liberty be construed as a manual capable of settling wars between nations. Ultimately, in claiming that the dispute in the Middle East can be resolved through libertarian principles of private property Block and Futerman have lost sight of the complexity of the philosophical issues. They devote attention to showing, for example, the hatred that has historically been shown towards Jews (p. 252-253) but they are wrong to suppose that this is in any way related to a theory of private property and naive to hope that inter-racial hatred can be resolved by reference to property rights.



References

Murray N. Rothbard (1967). War Guilt in the Middle East. Left and Right, 3 (3, Spring–Autumn): 20–30.

Murray N. Rothbard (1971) Rand on the Middle East The Libertarian Forum, December. Republished in Lew Rockwell, August 1, 2014. Available at https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/08/murray-nrothbard/ayn-rands-monstrous-views-on-the-middle-east/

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/02/no_author/the-classical-liberal-case-for-israel/
 
As the authors observe “We readily admit that there is no individual Jew who can trace his ownership rights over any specific piece of land from 2000 years ago. And this, indeed, would be the criterion for transfer of land titles if we were discussing individual rights. On the other hand, we can identify specific Jewish groups that have a right to certain areas, such as the Kohanim with the Temple Mount.” (p. 304, 305).

That line, as I see it, gets to the crux of the argument.

But let's just suppose for the sake of argument that they are factually right, that certain modern Jews can be recognized as Kohanim descended from ancient Israelite priests, and that no one else, especially not anyone who today identifies as an Arab, can similarly trace any of their ancestry to the Levitical priests of old.

Never mind how the level of complexity of intermixing of genealogies over the course of 2 millennia would reveal that supposition to be a gross oversimplification.

And never mind how even in antiquity the Temple mount was not the property of the priests.

The authors use the words, "such as." This implies that their example of the Kahanim and the Temple Mount is only one out of a larger group of similar examples.

I suspect this is a lie on their part. They don't have other examples. This is it. There is no way to extrapolate out from saying the Kohanim should own the Temple Mount to saying that modern Jews as a group should own all the land that the Bible says God promised to the ancient twelve tribes of Israel.
 
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160. Palestine/Israel Debate with Professor Walter Block
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBFvMv0F26I
{Saifedean Ammous | 21 March 2023}

Can a libertarian or anarchist support the state of Israel? In this debate, Austrian economist Walter Block argues the affirmative and makes the case for why Israel is a force for liberty, while Saifedean argues political Zionism is the socialist central planning of land ownership, and is not possible without the violation of the property of Palestinians.

References:



Saifedean Ammous | Part Of The Problem 1110
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-SBj4u7Ucc
{Dave Smith | 04 April 2024}

Dave Smith is Joined By Economist Saifedean Ammous to discuss the conflict in Gaza from the perspective of a Palestinian. Saifedean talks to Dave about growing up in Palestine, the history of the war, and how this is not an example of classical colonialism, but a war of genocide.

 

^This should be pointed out anytime someone starts talking about how evil Hamas is. I hate Hamas for being patsies of Netanyahu.

'October 7 failure connected to Netanyahu helping Qatar fund Hamas'
Yoram Cohen said that the Netanyahu-led governments also failed to take any initiative to eliminate top Hamas leaders, only attacking such leaders in response to moves by Hamas.
By YONAH JEREMY BOB
FEBRUARY 6, 2024 18:18
A Palestinian Hamas-hired civil servant displays U.S. Dollar banknotes after receiving her salary paid by Qatar, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip December 7, 2018. (photo credit: IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/REUTERS)

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Speaking at Reichman University, while Cohen agreed that the IDF and the Shin Bet failed their operational missions to anticipate the invasion in advance and to thwart it, he said that the larger problems were strategic and came from the government.

According to Cohen, the government directly or indirectly (not mentioning Netanyahu by name, but referring to his governments) propped up Qatar and Hamas as alternatives to the Palestinian Authority when both were being boycotted by much of the rest of the Arab world[/IINDENT]​
 
Just consider: Jews lived for hundreds of years in Egypt and when they finally reached their “promised land” this was by no means empty. According to Deuteronomy and Joshua quite a bit of killing, pillaging and raping had to be done before taking over the land. Ancient Jews were not just homesteaders, they were also perpetrators, and there had been already plenty of ethnic mixing with other people of other tribes, with Egyptians, Greeks and all sorts of other people around the Mediterranean, long before the Romans arrived and took over, and this genetic admixture, later also with Arabs, continued up to the present day. Any genetic linking of present-day Jews to ancient Jews, then, becomes an impossible task. There are contemporary Jews that show no genetic traces to ancient Jews, and there are plenty of Gentiles who do show such traces; and in any case, the genetic similarities to be found between the ancient and the present Jews will be one of countless variations and degrees. How to decide then who of the contemporaries is entitled to what part or portion of the holy land? (Interestingly, it appears that the closest genetic similarity to ancient Jews could be found among indigenous Christian Palestinians.)

-- Hans Hoppe

So, we sadly seem to be going into a crack-up phase in libertarian philosophy as applied to the current world-stage. The long-running Israel-Palestine "conflict" has been a ticking time-bomb of sorts, in respect to libertarian philosophy. Basically, we were never going to escape this turning into a question of theology. Let me explain...

(Long post hidden):

 
Hoppe is one of my favorite philosophers. Hoppe is right in respect to the modern situation ("Israel" has no right to do what they're doing) but, with that said, his views on the ancient history of the Israelites are problematic and I will explain why, and how this shows how the Israel-Palestine conflict does not bode well for the future of libertarian philosophy.

Let's start with the principle of non-aggression. Non-aggression is basically kindergarten morality -- you can't hit other kids. If you hit another kid, and they hit you back, you are the one who will be in trouble, not the kid who hit you back. Pretty simple. It's amazing how hard it is to explain this simple concept to the mass of the public *all of whom* went through kindergarten and understood this principle at one point in their lives.

Hoppe's view of the history of ancient Israel (that the conquest of Canaan was a fundamentally aggressive act) shows the approaching breakdown. If you do not believe in God, then Hoppe is completely correct -- a group of humans invading the land of another group of humans and killing them off in order to take that land is just aggression. And that's why Block is wrong, and Hoppe is right in respect to the current situation. The supposed genetic/historical justifications given for the current occuption by the proponents of Zionist "Israel" are absurd, just as Hoppe states, because they are also made on an atheistic basis. But the problem arises when we try to analyze all of human history from this atheistic starting-point -- neither side can actually prove its point.

The atheistic worldview cannot justify why anyone must be non-aggressive as opposed to aggressive. If it is true that we live, and then we die, and that's all there is to life -- YOLO -- then there's no reason not to be Hitler. Or Stalin. Or bin Laden. Or Netanyahu. If you want to do it, and you have the means to do it... then why wouldn't you do it? Just because some "ethicist" snowflakes have some fancy words they throw at you? Conan does not care about the cries of the limp-wristed intellectuals, he simply crushes them under his feet. One might argue that the battle is not merely over ethics but, instead, between the power of the pen and the sword. But, again, whether Conan fights with the pen or with the sword, either way, the fundamental reality of *what he is doing* is the same, that is, imperial conquest and total domination and subjugation of all others to himself -- king of the hill. The intellectual class fights with the pen, and the political class fights with the sword, but it's just one war. So, if we posit strict atheism, then Block wins and Hoppe loses. At least, Block wins if his Zionist buddies are powerful enough to pull off the Zionist "Israel" project. Otherwise, Hoppe could win if it is stamped out and he is proved to have been right that it is ultimately non-workable. But this is clearly not a rational debate, it's just horse-betting.

If God is as he reveals himself to be in Scripture -- the all-powerful Creator of heaven and earth -- then the matter is completely different. The power of God is supreme, insuperable and, thus, God's law is something that applies to all people, everywhere, whether they agree with it or not. In the case of the ancient history of God's chosen people, in that context, we are not in a position to call their conquest of Canaan "aggression" because there are more factors involved than just the situation on the ground there. Specifically, God created the world in Eden and was, thus, its property-owner. He placed two tenants there, Adam and Eve, and gave them specific rules that they were to live by, most notably, that they were not to eat of the forbidden fruit. They disobeyed God's rules and they were evicted from Eden into the surrounding wilderness. Rather than abandoning his creatures to destruction, however, God was determined to salvage (save/redeem) what he could from the broken relationship. Propertarian theory is great for analyzing this situation because it shows that God was not and is not obligated to save anyone. We (humanity) are the aggressors in this situation, not God.

When God later calls or chooses Abraham so that "all nations on earth will be blessed through him", God has begun the project of writing a completely new contract with humanity, at least, that part of humanity which desires to leave the wilderness they were evicted into. The purpose of this contract is to ultimately to recreate Eden itself and restore humanity to its original station and, in fact, even better, since we will never be able to fall away. From this starting-point, God moved in the world to homestead a land from the wilderness, and the land he chose was Canaan. That the stage on which the Israel-versus-Palestine conflict is playing out is that very land -- with truly apocalyptic connotations at every level of human existence -- is no coincidence. We might say that God's choice of that land was made with divine prophetic foresight, in part for this purpose, that is, to be the stage upon which the Apocalypse will play out.

But wait a minute, you say, Adam and Eve were already driven out of Eden into the wilderness -- after that eviction, God's property claims were extinguished, that is, he had no further claim to "harass" the descendants of Adam and Eve, so why is all this other prophetic stuff going on? And the answer to that question cannot be understood without looking up to the heavens. The very first verse of Scripture tells us: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." God created a two-level world. Adam and Eve lived on earth, not in the heavens. But the Fall did not happen in a vacuum. Adam did not just wake up one morning and decide, for no reason, to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Rather, Eve was tempted and she enticed her husband to partake. Scripture explains that he wittingly rebelled against God, so he bears his guilt for that. But the rest of the story has to do with this talking Snake that was there in the Garden. The New Testament explains to us that the Snake was, in fact, the presence of Satan who was, prior to being cast out of heaven, a heavenly creature.

Thus, prior to the violation of God's earthly property rights that occurred in Eden, there was a violation of God's heavenly property rights by the devil, who is the initiator or "mastermind" of this human rebellion. (In case you find the concept of "heavenly property rights" confusing, just think of Intellectual Property, for example. In the biblical cosmology, the heavenly has to do with anything that is fundamentally intangible in nature.) The devil's aggression against God's property rights was more subtle and difficult to prove, since it did not involve a material act, as the eating of the tree did. Eating of the tree left empirical, forensic evidence of what had been done. The Snake's property-rights violation was more subtle and proving the case against the Snake is, thus, much more difficult. In the limit, it required the Crucifixion of the Son of God to finally and irrefutably prove the case.

The point I want to make here is that absolutely none of this is a mere theological abstraction. This isn't just some speculative theory about "stuff way out there" in LSD-headtrip space. No, these events happened right here on the earth, with material implications. Thus, when we come to God's choice of the land of Canaan as the place where he would settle his chosen people in ancient times, we have to realize that God had multiple rights and claims to take this action. First, he had the right by virtue of being the creator of the whole world. Psalm 24:1, "The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it." Second, he had a right by virtue of the fact that the world in the wake of the Fall (and the Flood) was a wasteland wilderness more like a Mad Max movie than like a bustling modern metropolis where there are clear property rights and clear laws governing those rights. In short, the Canaanites who were displaced were no propertarians, they were viciously aggressive, tribalistic opportunists. Finally, God had a righteous plan for the salvation of the world and, in his boundless wisdom, he chose this land as the stage upon which his redemptive plan would play out. Since he had the sovereign right to dispose the fallen creation in any way he saw fit, no one can bring a moral charge against him for the choice he made to settle his chosen people in that territorial area. Thus, when the people of God settled Canaan -- in part, by force -- at God's own direction, they were not acting aggressively, rather, they were merely acting out the commands of the rightful owner of the place, who was preparing to settle accounts with his own enemies in the very far future. In short, the conquest of Canaan is, viewed from the apocalyptic standpoint, the commencement of God's legal case against his enemies, specifically, the devil and the fallen angels who are part of his heavenly rebellion. This legal case was tried and verdict given at Golgotha. The detention and sentencing phase began at the Resurrection and Ascension and final execution of the sentence will occur at the Second Coming.

Returning to the modern debate over "Israel" versus Palestine, what lessons are there for the modern conflict from all of this ancient history? While I disagree with Hoppe's analysis of the conquest of Canaan as aggressive (for the theological and historical reasons given above), Hoppe is correct that the former dwelling in the land of Canaan (now Palestine) by the Jews is a historically irrelevant fact to the modern situation. After Titus expelled the Jews from Palestine, the diaspora rabbinical tradition taught that this was obviously an act of God, and that God's promise of Messiah meant that they would return to their homeland only after God sends the Messiah. Well, they are half-right about that, in that, they cannot return to their homeland but through their Messiah -- this is one of the things Jesus is talking about when he says, "No man comes to the Father but through me." (John 14:6) And this demonstrates what is really at stake -- who is the Messiah of the Jews? Is it Jesus of Nazareth? Or someone else?

And Scripture has already foretold how this is going to play out, and it will certainly so play out. In their hardness of heart, the unbelieving Jews have refused Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah for 2,000 years. Scripture tells us they will continue to do so until the Antichrist is revealed. From prophecy, we can see that the Jews are going to accept the Antichrist as their Messiah (we are told that the Antichrist will make a covenant with God's people, which implies they will have accepted him as the Messiah.) But they will be betrayed half way through the 7-year covenant. This betrayal will be the moment when the Jews will be awakened, en masse to the truth, that Jesus is, and always has been, the Messiah, the Son of David, the one and only Savior of the world.

Stated another way, There is no Israel without Jesus of Nazareth. Thus, the entire world is being tied into a kind of socio-philosophical-theological knot by the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and this is by God's own prophetic decree. The point is that: (a) God is real and his rights and claims are materially binding on earth, (b) the historical plan of God to save the world from the consequences of Adam's and Eve's disobedience (propertarian aggression) involved settling his chosen people in the land of Canaan, (c) that God sent his Son to die for our sins, exactly as Scripture teaches and as the church has witnessed for 2,000 years and (d) that the apocalyptic convergence of all these threads of history is going to wring out all other false views so that it will become clear to all that there is a black-and-white choice between Jesus of Nazareth as the one and only Savior of the world, on the one hand, or boundless evil and malice, on the other hand.

Let me summarize what I've written so far. The ancient Israelites were not wrong to settle the land of Canaan, including by the use of force at God's direct command, because God had the property right to the land as its creator (and, thus, owner). The claim of right that God gave to them is perpetual but the land-owner himself is the one to whom that claim of right is made out against, in other words, the claim of right to the Promised Land is not had from the Palestinians, but from God himself. God has explained through the New Testament what the condition is for return to that claim-of-right: that the remnant of his chosen people are to accept their Messiah, who is Jesus of Nazareth. "No one", Jesus says, "comes to the Father but through me." Not even one person. Not one Gentile, not one Jew -- no one.

Thus, the entire Zionist project is really an attempt to make an end-run around John 14:6. But Jesus anticipated this and said in John 10:1, "I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber." He was also speaking about false teachers but we can see from world-events that he knew there would come a day when the rebels hiding among God's people would try to make an end-run around the Gospel of God, that is, that they would try to find "some other way".

My assertion is that this "other way" is the Zionist "Israel". While there are many, both Christians and Jews, who are involved in that project through unwitting devotion and do not understand its fundamentally rebellious purpose, the fact remains that its original architecture is rebellion against God. The true purpose of "Israel" as we know it today is to wittingly fabricate the fulfillment of prophetic Scripture. A book-length treatment could be written just on this point alone. The number of biblical prophecies which the modern "Israel" is attempting to fabricate is truly staggering. Consider Isaiah 4:5, "Then the LORD will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over all the glory will be a canopy." Sound familiar? Something like an Iron Dome, perhaps? Or, consider Micah 4:13a, "Rise and thresh, O Daughter of Zion, for I will give you horns of iron; I will give you hoofs of bronze and you will break to pieces many nations." Iron horns are a lot like an iron dome. And so on. Countless other examples can be mentioned.

The reason we know that these are counterfeits of divine prophecy is because they are missing Jesus of Nazareth. As stated already, there is no Israel without Jesus of Nazareth. It's a logical impossibility. And this is the solution to the question of libertarian philosophy that plagues anyone who, for reasons of devotion, wants to see God's people return to their ancestral homeland. "Israel" without Jesus is indeed sheer aggression against the rightful inhabitants of that land, that is, the Palestinians who have been living there and owning land since well before 1948. But Israel with Jesus of Nazareth is fulfillment of God's prophecy, that is, it is the continuation of the covenant promises that God made to give them the Promised Land originally, as well as to gather them back to that land after he scattered them, as he prophesied would happen. At the risk of being repetitive, this is John 14:6 in action on the modern geopolitical map: "No one comes to the Father but through me." There is only one way for God's people to go back to the Promised Land, and that is through Jesus.

I can't predict what is going to happen in Israel/Palestine as this conflict continues to escalate, but I can predict that (a) it's not going to be resolved and (b) the stakes are only going to be raised over time. It is a ratcheting conflict, there is strictly no case in which this is resolved but through the prophesied appearing of the Antichrist. And that resolution will be a false-resolution -- it will be both deceptive and temporary. Those who are behind the rebellious Zionist "Israel" and who covenant with the Antichrist to resolve the growing conflict there are going to be betrayed by the Antichrist. And that will be the moment in history at which the prophecies will become plainly visible to all. And that is also when the reality of the heavenly component of this analysis will also become plainly visible. This was never a mere question of who owns what claim to which patch of ground. It is a dual heaven-and-earth problem, and it all goes back to the cross and the Resurrection. It's all about the Gospel.
 
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https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/status/1790834581496582482
& https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/status/1790835047433371840
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"YOUR WELCOME" with Michael Malice #311: Walter Block
https://odysee.com/@MichaelMalice:6/your-welcome-with-michael-malice-311:6
{Michael Malice | 15 May 2024}

Michael Malice (“YOUR WELCOME”) welcomes author and world-renowned economist, Walter Block, onto the show to talk about his encounters with Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard, his recent ousting as a Senior Fellow from the Mises Institute, and why some academic scholars can actually be very spiteful.

HOPPE CONTRA BLOCK: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/01...ing-up-is-hard-to-do-but-sometimes-necessary/ [see this post - OB]

BLOCK REJOINDER: https://www.meste.org/mest/MEST_Najava/XXIV_Block_Futerman.pdf

WALTER BLOCK:
- https://twitter.com/waltereblock
- https://mises.org/profile/walter-block

 

Hoppe was Wrong about Walter Block! with Alan Futerman on Israel Palestine
Anarchast Episode 612
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jPhKck1W-s
{TheAnarchast | 29 May 2024}

Today we chat with the great Walter Block and his coauthor Alan Futerman about the ongoing controversy between them and Hans-Hermann Hoppe being carried out through published articles in major outlets and journals about the Israel Palestine conflict.

Article links:
- The book in question: The Classical Liberal Case for Israel
- [PDF] The Legal Status of the State of Israel: A Libertarian Approach
- An Open Letter to Walter E. Block [see this post - OB]
- [PDF] Rejoinder to Hoppe on Israel versus Hamas
- The Classical Liberal Case For Israel [see this post - OB]
- [PDF] Rejoinder to Gordon and Njoya on Israel and Libertarianism

[Timestamps:]
0:00:00 - Intro
0:00:30 - Introductions
0:06:26 - Why classical liberalism
0:16:47 - The Mises misunderstanding
0:30:16 - Typhoid Marry
0:36:15 - The Rothbard rebuttal
0:56:41 - How Should Libertarians Disagree
1:04:45 - Closing thoughts
1:13:22 - Mises Institute call for forgiveness

 
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I'm surprised anyone has paid attention to Block since he penned that ridiculous evictionism argument in the abortion debate. And that was like 15 years ago.


100% not supporting this clown.

But, didn't Rothbard have a similar position?
 
https://mises.org/power-market/mad-social-scientist-mad-zionist

From Mad (Social) Scientist to Mad Zionist

"Walter Block has always been “pro-Israel” and no one at the Mises Institute, named after the son of a Jewish Rabbi and co-founded by Murry Rothard, a New York Jew, ever gave it a second thought.

He is no longer an unpaid senior fellow at the Mises Institute not because he is “pro-Israel,” as some uninformed or dishonest commentators have asserted.

It is because the Mises Institute cannot be associated with such a well-known, prolific, public advocate of the intentional targeting and killing of Palestinian women, children, and babies."
 
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