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Israel – Having the Country Without the State

The Zero State Solution – The Libertarian Answer to the “Arab/Israeli” Conflict

In this post I will try to give the libertarian answer to a problem that has been nagging at all of us incessantly. The answer will probably shock you, so be prepared. There’s a problem. There’s this thing called the Jewish democratic State. It needs a majority of Jewish persons in it in order to maintain its Jewish character. There are these Arabs in territories that the military of this Jewish State governs. If those territories are annexed as officially part of this Jewish State, then Jewish persons will no longer be the majority in the State.

Here are the general solutions offered by the major political forces in Israel:

  1. The Extreme Left Wing – Annex everything and give citizenship rights to everyone. Forget about a Jewish majority. Arabs are awesome.
  2. The Left Wing – Give the Arabs their own State so you won’t have to give them voting rights, thereby maintaining the Jewish majority.
  3. The Center – Don’t do anything. Just keep staying in power and hope nobody notices.
  4. The Right Wing – Annex everything, give human rights but no citizenship rights to any of the Arabs, and instead pay them to leave, thereby maintaining the Jewish majority.
  5. The Extreme Right Wing – Annex everything and kick all the Arabs out of the country. Jews are awesome.

As a libertarian, I say all these solutions are wrong, and all of them are immoral to some extent because all of them assume that citizenship rights are a good thing. They are not. Why? Because as a citizen of the State of Israel, I am forced to use State-controlled money that loses value every day instead of being allowed to use gold or silver. I am forced to pay the government money for services I do not want. I am forced to use government controlled banks that only carry 10% of the money I put in them because the government gives them special privileges. I am forced to send my child to state prison every day until my child is 18, to be indoctrinated with whatever the State Education Minister wants his employees to indoctrinate her with. Usually, these employees are not skilled enough to indoctrinate, so they just end up babysitting at best. If I don’t send my children to these school-prisons, I myself will go to prison. I am forced to pay for these school-prisons in payroll taxes and excise taxes and value added taxes. I am forced to pay 8 shekels a liter for gasoline (roughly $8.25 a gallon), more than half of which goes directly to the State in taxes, to pay for roads that are constantly backed up every single day. I am forced to pay property taxes even if I’m only renting. Worst of all, I am forced, as a citizen of Israel, to risk my very life for 3 years in an inefficient boondoggle of an army as a slave with virtually no pay. The list goes on and on and on.

In return for being robbed and having my children imprisoned and being forced into an army, I get the “right of return” as a Jew, which simply guarantees me the ability to move here without being kicked out or killed by the State. Essentially, the Jewish State guarantees me that, if I am about to be killed by a different State, I can go to the Jewish one and they promise not to kill me on purpose because I’m Jewish (though I may get killed in army service for the State). They won’t kill me, they will only enslave me and my children.

But, people will say, if I don’t like something about the State, I have a right to vote. Voting, essentially, is the right to have a tiny meaningless say about who will get a piece of my stolen money that will first be filtered through bureaucratic systems of government workers who will consume most of the money before it gets to anyone else. This is what makes every sector in Israel hate every other sector in Israel. The State, which pits everyone against everyone else and makes people hate each other for directing their stolen money somewhere else. Think Haredi public schools, Government stipends, Leftist public universities, army exemptions, funding for “settlements”.

Citizenship rights are not rights. They are liabilities, peppered with a tiny ray of hope that never materializes called “voting”. It reminds me of that line from The Hunger Games where Donald Sutherland explains why the Hunger Games take place. Why take one tribute from each district and make them all battle to the death, winner take all? Why not just kill them all? Because in order to control and enslave people, you have to give them hope. The hope that they will win the battle. Otherwise they will revolt. In statist terms, the hope that their vote will change something. Otherwise, there will probably be a revolution.

Being a citizen of a State means you will be stolen from and enslaved. So, the libertarian solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict is not to either grant citizenship or not grant citizenship to Arabs. It is to abolish citizenship itself for everyone.

Wouldn’t that lead to total anarchy? No. For readers that simply don’t believe this, I suggest Murray Rothbard’s book For a New Liberty. You can listen to it in full online for free here. It is not something I can deal with in one article. But here are a few key issues:

First of all, generally speaking, Israel  in the period of the Shoftim was basically a stateless libertarian society. So there is precedent, and it was the most peaceful period of Jewish history counting the number of years between skirmishes.

What about the right of return? The answer is, without a state, bringing Jews back to Israel will be a matter of private funding. If Jews want to come, they can come, just as before. No restrictions. Nothing changes.

What about keeping Arabs out, or other potential threats from flooding the country? It becomes a bidding war. If it is really important to keep Arabs or anyone else out, then the Jewish people themselves will be responsible for keeping private land in Jewish hands. (An interesting factoid is that almost all of the land sales to non-Jewish hands are through the Israeli Government itself, not private Jews. Surprise surprise.) Those that sell to Arabs can be voluntarily boycotted and expelled from the economy if people think it’s important to do that. Arabs that are here can be voluntarily bought out by rich Jewish interests, and there are plenty that would pay. It’s a question of who wants the land more and who can be bought out – the Jews or the Arabs?

If no one is a “citizen” of Israel, then every question – army, courts, land, roads, healthcare, immigration, emigration – becomes a question of whether you trust the Jewish people can voluntarily organize themselves through the free market to keep the nation together in their homeland or not.

In a free Israel, I would be proud to serve in the army voluntarily. It could be funded by voluntary contributions instead of taxes. The Jewish people could devise a system where those who pay get special card. The card could be required by private businesses who will only sell to people who contribute to national defense. Those who don’t would be forced into a corner and concentrated together geographically, as they would be expelled from all other local economies by private businesses refusing to do business with them.

In a free Israel, all roads would be private. They would be more expensive during rush hour and cheaper at other times, spreading out traffic by the price system and keeping things moving. This would also bring down the price of gas drastically.

In a free Israel, holy sites like the Kotel and Temple Mount would be privatized. People would pay a gram of silver (shekel is State money, there wouldn’t be any) to get in, and the owner would insure the policy that would make him the most money, such as special hours for Women at the Wall time, special hours for traditionalists etc., all parsed by supply and demand. The owner of the Temple Mount, whether all of Am Yisrael via shares of stock, or a single private owner or corporation, would decide whether he would allow Jews to pray there or not. He would probably allow it. He would be responsible for private security of the Mount.

There would be police companies hired by groups of people by geographic location. Haifa would have one police company. Jerusalem another. Those who did not pay the police bill would end up paying it anyway if they called the police for whatever reason, who would then charge them for services on the fly at a premium for not having a subscription. They would function as an insurance company.

The courts would be private people with reputations for being fair and fast. The fairest and fastest ones would be called upon the most and make the most money for judging the most cases. Say someone breaks into your house and steals your TV. You call the police company to investigate. They find the suspect and force him into a court of any judge both parties accept. If it turns out he is the culprit, the police did not violate the rights of an innocent person, and part of the cost of the police is paid by the culprit, as well as the salary of the judge. If the police got the wrong man, they are fined by the court for violating the rights of an innocent person.

The only law of the land would be, “Do not violate the person or property of any human being.” The job of any private court would be to apply that law to any and every case at hand.

Armed police or army cannot conquer the area and enslave other Jews because everyone is free to be armed individually.

Is this really possible? I believe it is. All the other annoying unsolvable questions melt away if you believe in freedom. We have plenty of money, plenty of will, and plenty of ingenuity. We don’t need a State to babysit us or imprison us or steal our money and pretend to solve problems we can solve ourselves.

God did not take us out of Egypt to be enslaved to a State. Am Yisrael Chai. Not Medinat Yisrael Chai.

From The Jewish Libertarian, here.

Against Evil Shlomo Aviner

Rabbinic Announcement to the Torah Public, 5766

The following Rabbis wrote and signed their names to the following announcement to the public. The original Hebrew letter can be found below.


Rabbi Dov Lior
Rabbi and Chair of the Rabbinical Court of Qiriyath Arba-Hevron
Rabbi Ya’acov Yosef
Rabbi, Giv’at Moshe, Jerusalem, Rosh Kollel and Rabbinical Court Chair

Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kalev
Judge, Jerusalem Area Rabbinical Court

Rabbi Eliyakim Levanon
Rabbi of Elon Moreh

In addition, the following rabbis have publicly stated their agreement with said public announcement:

Rabbi Nissim Karlitz
Rabbi and Rabbinical Court Chair, B’nei Braq

Rabbi Dov Levine
Rabbinical Court Chair, Jerusalem

Rabbi Shlomo Fisher
Rabbinical Court Judge, Jerusalem

To our brethren in the Torah observant community

More than a year has passed since the Bet Din (Rabbinical Court), comprised of three of our greatest rabbis, was appointed to investigate the many complaints lodged against the instruction of Rabbi Shlomo Aviner. With the presentation of explicit evidence, it was made clear that with regard to the issues of menstruation and marital relations (the areas which were checked), he has been permitting things which are completely prohibited under halacha(Jewish Law) And this is not one the issues which carry differing opinions amongst adjudicators and experts, but rather is among the very serious and clear Torah prohibitions which have never been matters of disagreement; and not just one incident, but rather a systematic removal of family purity from amongst those who inquire of him and listen to his instruction. Accordingly, it has become clear that the Bet Din stands by its ruling, yet the aforementioned individual continues to mislead those who make inquiries of him regarding these matters.

To our regret others have arisen, who without having clarify the facts very and without having approached any members of theBet Din, have come to strengthen his position against the Bet Din’sruling and to clarify “his approach,” and who have been misled by him through various distortions about which there is insufficient room to elaborate them. And, Indeed, it is very difficult for anyone who knows the aforementioned as one who strikes at the Torah and at the very Fear of Heaven, to accept that there is a such personality here, who on one hand brings Jews back to Torah with contradictory language, and on the other hand maliciously teaches the transgression of prohibitions, punishable by excommunication. You cannot judge a book by its cover.

And, here in the conclusion of the Bet Din, the explicit halacha is that regarding one who causes the public to stumble through his teaching on issues punishable by excommunication, one is not to listen to his teachings or guidance on any other matter.

Therefore we are warning every Torah-observant community, those who are interested in the sustenance of Israel in its land through the Word of the Almighty, not to ask nor to accept any instruction or guidance from the aforementioned individual, and thus, not to rely on any of his books or articles. We also turn to all institutions and organizations, and to all who allow the teachings and guidance of the aforementioned written or verbal, and all those who give him validity and public power, not to share in any activity with at all, and not placing any stumbling block before the public, Heaven forbid.

With this, we call on those, who up until now have innocently followed his teaching and guidance, not to be discouraged, inasmuch as they have been innocently following, should adhere to other rabbis from now on. to be truly strengthened in the the path of the Almighty and in the Fear of Him.

We have come to this by the virtue of our obligation to remove a stumbling block from the path of our people and “…for the ways of the LORD are right, and the just do walk in them; but transgressors do stumble therein.” (Hoshea 14:10) He who hears will hear, and he who does not will not. May it be the Will of the Holy One, Blessed Be He that He implant a pure spirit from on high upon the entire community of His people Israel, and speedily bring forth for us a complete redemption.

Continue reading…
From Shlomo-aviner.blogspot.co.il, here.

Rockwell on Rothbard’s ‘For A New Liberty’

The Rothbardian Way

By

May 20, 2006

Here is the introduction to the new edition of For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto.

There are many varieties of libertarianism alive in the world today, but Rothbardianism remains the center of its intellectual gravity, its primary muse and conscience, its strategic and moral core, and the focal point of debate even when its name is not acknowledged. The reason is that Murray Rothbard was the creator of modern libertarianism, a political-ideological system that proposes a once-and-for-all escape from the trappings of left and right and their central plans for how state power should be used. Libertarianism is the radical alternative that says state power is unworkable and immoral.

“Mr. Libertarian,” Murray N. Rothbard was called, and “The State’s Greatest Living Enemy.” He remains so. Yes, he had many predecessors from whom he drew: the whole of the classical-liberal tradition, the Austrian economists, the American antiwar tradition, and the natural-rights tradition. But it was he who put all these pieces together into a unified system that seems implausible at first but inevitable once it has been defined and defended by Rothbard. The individual pieces of the system are straightforward (self-ownership, strictproperty rights, free markets, anti-state in every conceivable respect) but the implications are earthshaking. Once you are exposed to the complete picture – and For a New Liberty has been the leading means of exposure for more than a quarter of a century – you cannot forget it. It becomes the indispensable lens through which we can see events in the real world with the greatest possible clarity.

This book more than any other explains why Rothbard seems to grow in stature every year (his influence has vastly risen since his death) and why Rothbardianism has so many enemies on the left, right, and center. Quite simply, the science of liberty that he brought into clear relief is as thrilling in the hope it creates for a free world as it is unforgiving of error. Its logical and moral consistency, together with its empirical explanatory muscle, represents a threat to any intellectual vision that sets out to use the state to refashion the world according to some pre-programmed plan. And to the same extent it impresses the reader with a hopeful vision of what might be.

Rothbard set out to write this book soon after he got a call from Tom Mandel, an editor at Macmillan who had seen an op-ed by Rothbard in the New York Times that appeared in the spring of 1971. It was the only commission Rothbard ever received from a commercial publishing house. Looking at the original manuscript, which is so consistent in its typeface and almost complete after its first draft, it does seem that it was a nearly effortless joy for him to write. It is seamless, unrelenting, and energetic.

The historical context illustrates a point often overlooked: modern libertarianism was born not in reaction to socialism or leftism – though it is certainly anti-leftist (as the term is commonly understood) and antisocialist. Rather, libertarianism in the American historical context came into being in response to the statism of conservatism and its selective celebration of a conservative-style central planning. American conservatives may not adore the welfare state or excessive business regulation but they appreciate power exercised in the name of nationalism, warfarism, “pro-family” policies, and invasion of personal liberty and privacy. In the post-LBJ period of American history, it has been Republican presidents more than Democratic ones who have been responsible for the largest expansions of executive and judicial power. It was to defend a pure liberty against the compromises and corruptions of conservatism – beginning with Nixon but continuing with Reagan and the Bush presidencies– that inspired the birth of Rothbardian political economy.

It is also striking how Rothbard chose to pull no punches in his argument. Other intellectuals on the receiving end of such an invitation might have tended to water down the argument to make it more palatable. Why, for example, make a case for statelessness or anarchism when a case for limited government might bring more people into the movement? Why condemn U.S. imperialism when doing so can only limit the book’s appeal to anti-Soviet conservatives who might otherwise appreciate the free-market bent? Why go into such depth about privatizing courts and roads and water when doing so might risk alienating people? Why enter into the sticky area of regulation of consumption and of personal morality – and do it with such disorienting consistency – when it would have surely drawn a larger audience to leave it out? And why go into such detail about monetary affairs and central banking and the like when a watered-down case for free enterprise would have pleased so many Chamber-of-Commerce conservatives?

But trimming and compromising for the sake of the times or the audience was just not his way. He knew that he had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to present the full package of libertarianism in all its glory, and he was not about to pass it up. And thus do we read here: not just a case for cutting government but eliminating it altogether, not just an argument for assigning property rights but for deferring to the market even on questions of contract enforcement, and not just a case for cutting welfare but for banishing the entire welfare-warfare state.

Whereas other attempts to make a libertarian case, both before and after this book, might typically call for transitional or half measures, or be willing to concede as much as possible to statists, that is not what we get from Murray. Not for him such schemes as school vouchers or the privatization of government programs that should not exist at all. Instead, he presents and follows through with the full-blown and fully bracing vision of what liberty can be. This is why so many other similar attempts to write the Libertarian Manifesto have not stood the test of time, and yet this book remains in high demand.

Similarly, there have been many books on libertarianism in the intervening years that have covered philosophy alone, politics alone, economics alone, or history alone. Those that have put all these subjects together have usually been collections by various authors. Rothbard alone had mastery in all fields that permitted him to write an integrated manifesto – one that has never been displaced. And yet his approach is typically self-effacing: he constantly points to other writers and intellectuals of the past and his own generation. In addition, some introductions of this sort are written to give the reader an easier passage into a difficult book, but that is not the case here. He never talks down to his readers but always with clarity. Rothbard speaks for himself. I’ll spare the reader an enumeration of my favorite parts, or speculations on what passages Rothbard might have clarified if he had a chance to put out a new edition. The reader will discover on his or her own that every page exudes energy and passion, that the logic of his argument is impossibly compelling, and that the intellectual fire that inspired this work burns as bright now as it did all those years ago.

The book is still regarded as “dangerous” precisely because, once the exposure to Rothbardianism takes place, no other book on politics, economics, or sociology can be read the same way again. What was once a commercial phenomenon has truly become a classical statement that I predict will be read for generations to come.

May 20, 2006

From Lewrockwell.com, here.