Friday, January 27, 2006

William Marina on Israel

Mr. Marina recounts his own impressions of Israel and its politics in this short post. I think he has opened a topic that is very difficult for some Libertarians, because they think that Israel has the right to self-defense, because Israel is a state and Palestine is a tribal terrorist organization at best. At least, so they assume, but this might change with the Hamas in the administration now.

However, the point of my post is not the problematic stand of Palestine, but the situation between Israel and Libertarian "values". I believe Mr. Marina pointed something out that has been forgotten in the debate. As much as I here screaming support from national-liberals in the German blogs, like Politically Incorrect or Axis of Good, I think they forgot with whom they are dealing. Zionism and Israel are porportionally socialist in their outlook and if I am not completely mistaken, socialism is something none of those blogs wants... It all comes down to priorities, then. And according to Mr. Marina, Israel is not only slightly socialistic, but a whopping socialist country:

I was in Gaza in December, 1987, about two weeks before the initial Intifada developed. By my fourth visit to Israel in 1990, it was clear my efforts were over. Florida’s AIPAC leaders were not enchanted with the notion of bringing free market ideas to that essentially socialist/corporatist nation, and so informed the University. At that time about 94% of Israel’s economy was under government ownership or control. Eat your heart out, Fidel!


94%? That's much, but you can read more on Israel's background, here. So, should Libertarians vouch all their support for Israel, just because they are attacked by Palestine terrorists, or should we, imo rightfully, critize the state of Israel.

I think Mr. Broder and others are too fanatic about Israel and everyone who tries to put the situation into proportion is called and Anti-Semit or Jew-Hater.

Perhaps he should declare himself than what he truly things is right, since he uses socialist tools to accomplish nationalist ideals. I don't think that this post qualifies as "Anti-Jewish", but I think some people wouldn't hesitate to damn it as such.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

YOU ARE NOT anti semetic....you are an idiot. Look at some of these middle east sites and see who the real nut cases are. Socialist??? Please...it is easy to defend the arab nations isn't it? They are the true abusers of the the Palestinians. They have used them for cannon fodder for ever, and always will. Jews don't let other Jews stay in poverty, but surely the wealthy arab countries rather give money for guns than bread to these people. Tell it like it really is will you.

Max said...

Ok, obviously, you didn't read the whole article. I am not defending ANY Arab nation. You are reading something into my post, that I did not say!

It is nothing new that the Middle East has a problem with tolerance and peaceful mannered interactions with anybody outside their belief system ( I have critized Terrorism on numerour occassion and this post shouldn't deal with that!).

On the contrary it is hard to defend the arab nations, because they are mostly theocracies with no accountability to the people they rule. Of course, they are harsh against the Palestinians. In fact, the arab nations around Palestine have even more hatred against them as the Israelian state.

However, this doesn't wash aways the fact, that the Israeli state is a socialist democratic regime. It has an extensive welfare system (as you acknowledged in your post) (Jews giving to jews!) and it has state control over most of the economy and the education in Israel.
I don't say that the arabs are any better, in fact, they are worse than Israel on many accounts, but this wasn't part of the post.

Also, socialism has nothing to do with the terrorist thing, but only with the domestic politics of a country and as such Israel is more socialist as the USA. Just go and look it up.