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Ammous vs. Block on Israel

by on January 29, 2024

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As I tweeted here:

Walter Block’s pro-Israel WSJ article from October, “The Moral Duty to Destroy Hamas” (substack version) upset lots of libertarians, e.g. Scott Horton who says, at about 1:08:00 here, that Walter is now kicked out of libertarianism because of his Israel-Gaza views.

Kevin Duffy also criticized him; Walter responded here: “Have I Gone AWOL?” He argued that his views on Gaza are fine since it’s okay to disagree with Rothbard and still be a libertarian.

Walter has another pro-Israel piece up in the WSJ today — “How Jews Escaped Their Dismal Fate.” Saifedean Ammous and Walter had debated this topic previously and after the October editorial, Walter asked Saif to co-author something with him to show that even libertarians who disagree can collaborate on issues they agree on.

This is Saif’s response to Walter (he gave me permission to post it):

“Walter,

Our debate made it very clear that you refuse to accept the legitimacy of private property rights for Palestinians, and you support the continued monopolization of Palestine’s land by a socialist government agency, the Israeli Land Authority, which means you are a socialist. Also, your recent unhinged bloodthirsty WSJ editorial made it clear to me you think carpet bombing innocent civilians is acceptable if they do not belong to your tribe, which means you do not view me as a human being. Both of these facts mean there is no room for any sort of constructive dialogue between a civilized human being like me who accepts property rights as the basis of human interaction, and renounces the initiation of aggression, and a barbaric socialist monster like you who supports violence and theft. There is absolutely nothing anyone can offer me to sully my name by associating with anyone who thinks like you.

Rather than trying to assuage your guilty conscience over supporting a genocide by writing an irrelevant paper with me, I would encourage you to read Ludwig von Mises’ Human Action to understand the inextricable importance of property rights to civilization, and to read Professor Hoppe’s argumentation ethics to understand why it’s meaningless for me to engage with socialists who reject property rights. I also discuss these points in detail in my latest book, Principles of Economics, attached here. I realize these authors write at a level far more intellectually advanced than your moronic brand of shock-jock shallow libertarianism dedicated to defending prostitution, political Zionism, and other types of detestable degeneracy, but I have hope that if you persist and push yourself, you may yet come to understand how human society can function peacefully and redeem yourself in your latter years.

If you read these books and come to your senses, and are willing to publicly support the privatization of the land of historic Palestine, and to denounce the bombing of civilians, I would be happy to consider working with you. Until then, I will continue to only cooperate with civilized human beings, while you and your work continue to fade to hypocritical irrelevance.

Saif”

Update: See also—

As for my own views, see these tweets:

I haven’t weighed in much on the Walter Block/Mises Institute/Hoppe Israel stuff, since I know what areas I specialize in and this is not one of them (libertarians often want to chime in about things they know little about; I try to resist this or provide appropriate disclaimers). (See his recent discussion w/

@Lieboisout

youtube.com/watch?v=ILV45Z ) But one comment. One of the oddest things about Walter’s stance on all this is his view that libertarians are not against war, just against offensive war, because we are “not pacifists”; his exhortation that LRC, Mises, antiwar.com, etc. should take down the slogan “anti-war.” He seems to have forgotten that just because individual self-defense is justified and we are not pacifists (see ch. 5 of my book Legal Foundations of a Free Society stephankinsella.com/lffs/), it doesn’t mean we can’t oppose war, since when states wage war it always aggresses against innocents (collateral damage), and usually against the country’s own citizens as well (taxation, conscription). That’s why he wants to argue that if we are anti-war we are pacifists, because he doesn’t realize that individual self-defense can’t be extended to state-waged “defensive” war. Anti-war libertarians are not necessarily pacificists; many of us believe individuals do have a right to use force in self-defense or even retaliation, but states are criminal gangs so the analogy is thin. This calls to mind this old LRC blogpost of mine web.archive.org/web/2011062605 “I suppose any “libertarian” who supported the Iraq War might want to seek partial redemption, but I’m reminded here of Ayn Rand’s angry cursing of Nathaniel Branden after she discovered his lies and affairs: “If you have an ounce of morality left in you, an ounce of psychological health—you’ll be impotent for the next twenty years! And if you achieve any potency, you’ll know it’s a sign of still worse moral degradation!” Likewise, one would think that Sandefur, after having the terrible judgment to support the Iraq War, might refrain from commenting in public on libertarian matters for a while, or at least on matters of war.”

that changes nothing about what I said. opposing state war, even “defensive” state war, does not imply pacifism. And just because a wronged individual has a right to use force in defense or retaliation does not imply that the state has a similar “right”. If I use force i don’t have to hurt third parties; it can be directed at the aggressor. Not so when the state acts “defensively.” It’s simply a bad analogy. You are free to argue that state war and the related aggression are justified but don’t claim that libertarians who oppose this are pacifists. We are not.

Walter Block’s pro-Israel WSJ article from October (wsj.com/articles/the-m) upset lots of libertarians, e.g.

@scotthortonshow

who says, at about 1:08:00 here, that Walter is now kicked out of libertarianism b/c of his Israel-Gaza views. youtu.be/ajuyCix3rG4?si Kevin Duffy also criticized him; Walter responded here: “Have I Gone AWOL?” He argued that his views on Gaza are fine since it’s okay to disagree with Rothbard and still be a libertarian. Walter has another pro-Israel piece up in the WSJ today — wsj.com/articles/how-j

@saifedean

and Walter had debated this topic previously (x.com/nskinsella/sta) and after the October editorial, Walter asked Saif to co-author something with him to show that even libertarians who disagree can collaborate on issues they agree on. This is Saif’s response to Walter (he gave me permission to post it): “Walter, Our debate made it very clear that you refuse to accept the legitimacy of private property rights for Palestinians, and you support the continued monopolization of Palestine’s land by a socialist government agency, the Israeli Land Authority, which means you are a socialist. Also, your recent unhinged bloodthirsty WSJ editorial made it clear to me you think carpet bombing innocent civilians is acceptable if they do not belong to your tribe, which means you do not view me as a human being. Both of these facts mean there is no room for any sort of constructive dialogue between a civilized human being like me who accepts property rights as the basis of human interaction, and renounces the initiation of aggression, and a barbaric socialist monster like you who supports violence and theft. There is absolutely nothing anyone can offer me to sully my name by associating with anyone who thinks like you. Rather than trying to assuage your guilty conscience over supporting a genocide by writing an irrelevant paper with me, I would encourage you to read Ludwig von Mises’ Human Action to understand the inextricable importance of property rights to civilization, and to read Professor Hoppe’s argumentation ethics to understand why it’s meaningless for me to engage with socialists who reject property rights. I also discuss these points in detail in my latest book, Principles of Economics, attached here. I realize these authors write at a level far more intellectually advanced than your moronic brand of shock-jock shallow libertarianism dedicated to defending prostitution, political Zionism, and other types of detestable degeneracy, but I have hope that if you persist and push yourself, you may yet come to understand how human society can function peacefully and redeem yourself in your latter years. If you read these books and come to your senses, and are willing to publicly support the privatization of the land of historic Palestine, and to denounce the bombing of civilians, I would be happy to consider working with you. Until then, I will continue to only cooperate with civilized human beings, while you and your work continue to fade to hypocritical irrelevance. Saif”

***

Update: In response to comments by Walter and others that even Rothbard thought some wars were just, e.g. the American Revolutionary War (War for Independence) and the southern side in the Civil War, first, so what. We can disagree with Rothbard on both. Second, the arguably defensive wars fought by the USA against England or by the CSA against the USA are not obviously similar to Israel’s actions re the Palestinians. Finally, note Rothbard’s comments in War, Peace, and the State:

another answer that the libertarian is particularly equipped to give is that while the bow and arrow and even the rifle can be pinpointed, if the will be there, against actual criminals, modern nuclear weapons cannot. Here is a crucial difference in kind. Of course, the bow and arrow could be used for aggressive purposes, but it could also be pinpointed to use only against aggressors. Nuclear weapons, even “conventional” aerial bombs, cannot be. These weapons are ipso facto engines of indiscriminate mass destruction. (The only exception would be the extremely rare case where a mass of people who were all criminals inhabited a vast geographical area.) We must, therefore, conclude that the use of nuclear or similar weapons, or the threat thereof, is a sin and a crime against humanity for which there can be no justification.

This is why the old cliché no longer holds that it is not the arms but the will to use them that is significant in judging matters of war and peace. For it is precisely the characteristic of modern weapons that they cannot be used selectively, cannot be used in a libertarian manner. Therefore, their very existence must be condemned, and nuclear disarmament becomes a good to be pursued for its own sake. And if we will indeed use our strategic intelligence, we will see that such disarmament is not only a good, but the highest political good that we can pursue in the modern world. For just as murder is a more heinous crime against another man than larceny, so mass murder—indeed murder so widespread as to threaten human civilization and human survival itself—is the worst crime that any man could possibly commit. And that crime is now imminent. And the forestalling of massive annihilation is far more important, in truth, than the demunicipalization of garbage disposal, as worthwhile as that may be. Or are libertarians going to wax properly indignant about price control or the income tax, and yet shrug their shoulders at or even positively advocate the ultimate crime of mass murder?

If nuclear warfare is totally illegitimate even for individuals defending themselves against criminal assault, how much more so is nuclear or even “conventional” warfare between States!

… Now there are crucial and vital differences between inter-State warfare on the one hand and revolutions against the State or conflicts between private individuals on the other. One vital difference is the shift in geography. In a revolution, the conflict takes place within the same geographical area: both the minions of the State and the revolutionaries inhabit the same territory. Inter-State warfare, on the other hand, takes place between two groups, each having a monopoly over its own geographical area; that is, it takes place between inhabitants of different territories. From this difference flow several important consequences: (1) in inter-State war the scope for the use of modern weapons of destruction is far greater. For if the “escalation” of weaponry in an intra-territorial conflict becomes too great, each side will blow itself up with the weapons directed against the other. Neither a revolutionary group nor a State combating revolution, for example, can use nuclear weapons against the other. But, on the other hand, when the warring parties inhabit different territorial areas, the scope for modern weaponry becomes enormous, and the entire arsenal of mass devastation can come into play. A second consequence (2) is that while it is possible for revolutionaries to pinpoint their targets and confine them to their State enemies, and thus avoid aggressing against innocent people, pinpointing is far less possible in an inter-State war.6 This is true even with older weapons; and, of course, with modern weapons there can be no pinpointing whatever. Furthermore, (3) since each State can mobilize all the people and resources in its territory, the other State comes to regard all the citizens of the opposing country as at least temporarily its enemies and to treat them accordingly by extending the war to them. Thus, all of the consequences of inter-territorial war make it almost inevitable that inter-State war will involve aggression by each side against the innocent civilians—the private individuals—of the other. This inevitability becomes absolute with modern weapons of mass destruction.

If one distinct attribute of inter-State war is inter-territoriality, another unique attribute stems from the fact that each State lives by taxation over its subjects. Any war against another State, therefore, involves the increase and extension of taxation-aggression over its own people.7 Conflicts between private individuals can be, and usually are, voluntarily waged and financed by the parties concerned. Revolutions can be, and often are, financed and fought by voluntary contributions of the public. But State wars can only be waged through aggression against the taxpayer.

All State wars, therefore, involve increased aggression against the State’s own taxpayers, and almost all State wars (all, in modern warfare) involve the maximum aggression (murder) against the innocent civilians ruled by the enemy State. On the other hand, revolutions are generally financed voluntarily and may pinpoint their violence to the State rulers, and private conflicts may confine their violence to the actual criminals. The libertarian must, therefore, conclude that, while some revolutions and some private conflicts may be legitimate, State wars are always to be condemned.

… Suppose further that we have that rarity—an unusually clear-cut case in which the State is actually trying to defend the property of one of its citizens. A citizen of country A travels or invests in country B, and then State B aggresses against his person or confiscates his property. Surely, our libertarian critic would argue, here is a clear-cut case where State A should threaten or commit war against State B in order to defend the property of “its” citizen. Since, the argument runs, the State has taken upon itself the monopoly of defense of its citizens, it then has the obligation to go to war on behalf of any citizen, and libertarians have an obligation to support this war as a just one.

But the point again is that each State has a monopoly of violence and, therefore, of defense only over its territorial area. It has no such monopoly; in fact, it has no power at all, over any other geographical area. Therefore, if an inhabitant of country A should move to or invest in country B, the libertarian must argue that he thereby takes his chances with the State-monopolist of country B, and it would be immoral and criminal for State A to tax people in country A and kill numerous innocents in country B in order to defend the property of the traveler or investor.8 1

It should also be pointed out that there is no defense against nuclear weapons (the only current “defense” is the threat of mutual annihilation) and, therefore, that the State cannot fulfill any sort of defense function so long as these weapons exist.

… In condemning all wars, regardless of motive, the libertarian knows that there may well be varying degrees of guilt among States for any specific war. But the overriding consideration for the libertarian is the condemnation of any State participation in war. Hence his policy is that of exerting pressure on all States not to start a war, to stop one that has begun and to reduce the scope of any persisting war in injuring civilians of either side or no side.

Note that Rothbard’s reasoning here would in no wise be used in a defense of Israel in the current situation.

  1. This is yet another example of one of Rothbard’s views influenced by Ayn Rand, where he does not cite or give Rand credit. She said, IIRC, in response to some question perhaps, that if an American citizen travels to a despotic regime which then jails or harms him, the US government has no obligation to intervene because the citizen assumed the risk by traveling to such a regime. See This is yet another example of one of Rothbard’s views influenced by Ayn Rand, where he does not cite or give Rand credit. She said, IIRC, in response to some question perhaps, that if an American citizen travels to a despotic regime which then jails or harms him, the US government has no obligation to intervene because the citizen assumed the risk by traveling to such a regime. See Rothbard’s Objectivist Influences. [↩]
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{ 12 comments… add one }
  • richard656b738d8d January 29, 2024, 7:46 am

    Walter Block also supported Trump, so I don’t know why anyone still thinks he’s a libertarian

    ↩ ∞
    • Dennis Nezic January 29, 2024, 3:55 pm

      I don’t think he did, except insofar as to say he was the lesser of the two evils, which seems to have been the correct take – given the swamp’s now clearly demonstrated eagerness for war, with Russia, and all of Israel’s other enemies :p. Isn’t he like the only president who never started a war? Although the Jared Kushner stuff, and Pfizer/Fauci stuff, was disturbing, but still. I don’t think Walter explicitly endorsed any anti-libertarian positions with Trump, as he’s now doing for his tribe.

      (Hm, but now in hindsight, maybe the main reason he liked Trump was cuz of the Kushner/Jerusalem stuff :S.)

      ↩ ∞
  • Dennis Nezic January 29, 2024, 8:39 am

    Walter finally met an undefendable he couldn’t defend – bombing civilians (after ethnically cleansing them and then keeping them in cages for decades), or not recognizing their property rights because they’re sub-human. It’s depressing that even someone like him wasn’t able to overcome his base tribalism. It’s terrifying clown world that this is being considered … clearly we came down from the trees too soon (ie. we’re still primitive monkeys).

    I recently heard about a story that Jewish culture still PROMOTES(?!) about a guy wanting to marry some king’s daughter (Saul’s?), and the king finally agrees on the condition that he MURDER (AND GENITALLY-MUTILATE (afterwards?)) ~100 palestinians. The guy came back with ~200. I’m pretty sure they aren’t ashamed of this story, they haven’t tried to scrub it from the texts they use to teach their children (like I think they did with many other psycho passages), it bolsters their myth about being superior/chosen. It’s a sick culture.

    There’s another story that they teach their kids about a guy tricking GOD HIMSELF, after god wanted to destroy a city or something. Some really absurd lawyer-esque slight-of-hand, WITH GOD. A sane reasonable and decent person would cringe at this story, and see it as embarrassing or shameful – but I bet they see it as a positive thing, about their cunning.

    So it’s a culture that relentlessly promotes racism, dehumanizing of the other, and deception. That explains a lot.

    ↩ ∞
    • Bob Murphy February 1, 2024, 6:10 am

      “I recently heard about a story that Jewish culture still PROMOTES(?!) about a guy wanting to marry some king’s daughter (Saul’s?), and the king finally agrees on the condition that he MURDER (AND GENITALLY-MUTILATE (afterwards?)) ~100 palestinians. The guy came back with ~200. I’m pretty sure they aren’t ashamed of this story, they haven’t tried to scrub it from the texts they use to teach their children”

      It is true that the Jews have not scrubbed this story from the texts they use to teach their children, in this case it goes by the street name “The Bible.”

      ↩ ∞
      • Dennis Nezic February 2, 2024, 9:16 pm

        :). Thank you for the context, noble sir!

        But the point still stands, I think they ENCOURAGE their youth to behave like those psychos/murderers/deceivers – they’re not dusty passages that are awkwardly avoided. Do you recall if “The Bible” presents these stories as cautionary or exemplary? Surely God would not approve of slaughtering ~200 outsiders, and then cutting their dicks? I was never taught such stories in my Catholic schools or churches.

        Also “The Bible”, as I’m sure you know, is a collection of books, some were added or removed over the centuries? I’m not sure why such grotesque stories were kept – surely as cautionary tales, for us saner more decent folk? And I think the Jew texts (ie. Talmud) were scrubbed of really racist stuff? Like Sanhedrin 57a: “When a Jew murders a gentile, there will be no death penalty. What a Jew steals from a gentile he may keep.” … or is that still in their books? 😛

        ↩ ∞
    • Amit Reuveni February 1, 2024, 8:38 am

      Palestinians or Philistines?
      Surely you don’t believe the name “Palestine” was in use during the times of the Bible?

      ↩ ∞
      • Dennis Nezic February 3, 2024, 9:49 am

        I’m aware of the distinction :p. I forget the (irrelevant) details, either they’re basically the same thing (modern day Palestinians are basically those Philistines?) or consider both terms to simply mean “non-jews”/”outsiders”. After reading the passage that Bob linked, I’m even more horrified and confused. God approved of the slaughter and mutilation of those ~200 non-jews??

        ↩ ∞
  • Adam February 1, 2024, 12:17 am

    Isn’t Block also sympathetic to lockdowns (per Jeff Tucker)?

    ↩ ∞

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Kinsella 2009Stephan Kinsella is a libertarian writer and retired patent attorney in Houston, Texas. He has published widely on various areas of libertarian legal theory and on legal topics such as intellectual property law and international law. His publications include Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Papinian Press, 2023), Against Intellectual Property (Mises Institute, 2008), International Investment, Political Risk, and Dispute Resolution: A Practitioner’s Guide (Oxford, 2020), and The Universal Principles of Liberty (2025).

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