Abstract
An analysis of the philosophy and history of Zionism, from a classical liberal perspective.
If you will it, it is no dream.
Theodor Herzl (1902 [Quoted in Avineri (2012)]).
This chapter is based on parts of our paper Block, Walter E., Alan G. Futerman and Rafi Farber. 2016. “A Libertarian Approach to the Legal Status of the State of Israel.” Indonesian Journal of International and Comparative Law, Vol. 3, Issue 3, June, pp. 435–553.
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Notes
- 1.
See as an example of support for a Jewish Home in Palestine the letter by Napoleon Bonaparte (1799).
- 2.
- 3.
Among libertarian theorists, Kinsella (2001a) suggests moving the Jewish state to Utah and Wyoming, while Kinsella (2003a) cites several other authors with proposals of this sort for Israelis. All we have to say about this, apart from the obvious injustice of forcing Jews to abandon their property and homes, is that it would necessarily involve involuntary transfers (unless one thinks the Israelis will accept such a move, which is absurd), and therefore these recommendations, if forcibly carried out, would constitute a violation of the non-aggression principle.
- 4.
“The new state would be modeled after the postemancipation European state. Thus, it would be secular in nature, granting no special place to the Hebrew language, Judaism, or to the ancient Jewish homeland in Palestine […] In 1897 Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. The first congress adopted the goal: ‘To create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by Public Law.’ The World Zionist Organization (WZO) was founded to work toward this goal, and arrangements were made for future congresses. The WZO established a general council, a central executive, and a congress, which was held every year or two. It developed member societies worldwide, continued to encourage settlement in Palestine, registered a bank in London, and established the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet) to buy land in Palestine […]” (emphasis added by present authors). Metz (1988b).
- 5.
For a brief description on the history and nature of pogroms see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/pogroms.html
- 6.
He was born in Skvyra, Russia, on 8/18/1856 and died in Tel Aviv on 1/2/1927.
- 7.
Suppose, contrary to fact conditional coming up, that the Jews took this land by force (after first asking nicely, of course). It is our contention that they still would have been justified in doing precisely that, since, we maintain, they were the first homesteaders of it, some 2000 years ago. See below on this.
- 8.
From the libertarian perspective, any mutually agreed upon price is a legitimate one.
- 9.
Had it been precisely the other way around, that, too, would have been completely compatible with libertarian law.
- 10.
According to libertarian doctrine, the amount of money that changes hands in any deal is irrelevant to whether the commercial interaction is licit or not. All that is necessary is that there were no threats, no duress, and the deal was voluntary on both sides.
- 11.
We acknowledge that the wherewithal to develop land is irrelevant to legitimacy, from the libertarian point of view. All that is necessary is well-founded ownership, based on homesteading principles. On the latter see: Block (1990a, b, 2002a, b); Block and Edelstein (2012), Block and Yeatts (1999–2000), Block vs Epstein (2005), Bylund (2005, 2012), Grotius (1625), Hoppe (1993, 2011a), Kinsella (2003b, 2006), Locke (1948), Paul (1987), Pufendorf (1673), Rothbard (1973, 32), Rozeff (2005a), Watner (1982). For the Talmudic equivalent of this literature, see the tractate Baba Metzia.
- 12.
Again, not exactly relevant, at least from a libertarian point of view. Why, then, do we include this quote in our paper? Because libertarians will not be the only readers of this work, and Jews in general, and Israelis in particular, are widely seen at least by intellectuals who will appreciate these irrelevancies, as modern day bogeymen; anything that will undermine this perception is grist for our mill.
- 13.
So here, too, the Anti-Zionist contention (for instance, that of Murray Rothbard, as we will see in Chap. 6) that the Jews were buying cheaply is not consistent with the facts.
- 14.
Bard (2012, 16–18). We make the case below that these sales in effect exploited the Jews, since they were the rightful owners, and were only buying land they already owned de jure, but of course not de facto.
- 15.
As we can see throughout this work, there was no such thing as a policy of expropriation by Zionists.
- 16.
For data on waves of immigration to Palestine, see https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Immigration/First_Aliyah.html
- 17.
As Transjordan’s King Abdullah said, “‘It is made quite clear to all, both by the map drawn up by the Simpson Commission and by another compiled by the Peel Commission, that the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in useless wailing and weeping’” (emphasis in the original), Bard (2012, 17).
- 18.
See Pipes (2011).
- 19.
On the Israeli Economy now see a brief exposition by Gilder (2009a, 2009b), Singer and Senor (2009 [2011]); and the publications of the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies http://www.jims-israel.org/Publications
- 20.
Those were the “good old days” when swamps actually existed. Nowadays, they have all been converted into wetlands by the forces of political correctness. Sometimes, the Jews are blamed for draining the swamps, sorry, the wetlands. “Most of the land purchased had not been cultivated previously because it was swampy, rocky, sandy or, for some other reason, regarded as uncultivable. This is supported by the findings of the Peel Commission Report (p. 242): ‘The Arab charge that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamp and uncultivated when it was purchased . . . there was at the time at least of the earlier sales little evidence that the owners possessed either the resources or training needed to develop the land.’ (1937)” Aumann (1972, 120). Moreover, “For twenty years (from 1914 to 1934) the Huleh Concession— some 57,000 dunams of partly swamp-infested but potentially highly fertile land in north-eastern Palestine—was in Arab hands. The Arab concessionaires were to drain and develop the land so as to make additional tracts available for cultivation, under very attractive terms offered by the Government (first Turkish, then British). However, this was never done, and in 1934 the concession was sold to a Jewish concern, the Palestine Land Development Company, at a huge profit. The Government added several onerous conditions concerning the amount of land (from the drained and newly developed tracts) that had to be handed over—without reimbursement for drainage and irrigation costs—to Arab tenant-farmers in the area. All told, hundreds of millions of dollars were paid by Jewish buyers to Arab landowners. Official records show that in 1933 £854,796 was paid by Jewish individuals and organizations for Arab land, mostly large estates; in 1934 the figure was £1,647,836 and in 1935, £1,699,488. Thus, in the course of only three years £4,202,180 (more than 20 million dollars at the prevailing rate of exchange) was paid out to Arab landowners (Palestine Royal Commission Report, 1937)” Aumann (1972, 123). In terms of reducing the incidence of Malaria and other such diseases, there can be little doubt as to the benefits of such activities.
- 21.
Although as of 2020 there are Zionists who are self-identified with the anarcho-capitalist perspective of libertarianism (for instance, in the Israel New Freedom Movement; see https://liberal.co.il/category/english/), the main point here is that a state in itself does not imply the negation of a Jewish Home.
- 22.
In a sense, the present authors agree with that statement if we are to follow anarcho-capitalism. But for purposes of the present work, we are extrapolating from the pure libertarian theory, and entering into the real world of the politically possible. At that time, even now, there is not sufficient support for a stateless society, so we are forced to resort to an analysis of second best: given statism, what can be justified by the freedom philosophy?
- 23.
According to a highly placed Canadian spokesmen, regarding how many Jews could enter that country during the 1930s, “None is too many”. Abella and Troper (1983).
- 24.
Quoted in the Manchester Guardian, May 23, 1936, in Sherman (1973).
- 25.
A state itself is not necessary per se to achieve this end, but an absence of preventing Jews from entering a given territory is. It is not the state that would have saved Jews from Nazis in a positive sense (yes, if taxes are spent on saving Jews, but it is conceivable that this is not necessary). The lack of a state that forbids Jews from entering a territory controlled by that government is necessary. The right of return for example is not a positive right – it merely indicates that the state will not stop you if you are Jewish and you want to live in Israel. Like the U.S. constitution, it limits the government rather than expands it (or so was the intention, once upon a time). But, again, given the situation at the time, a State of Israel would have been the only refuge for millions of Jews.
- 26.
As opposed to Socialist or Labor Zionism, with figures such as, among others, Moshe Hess, Ber Borochov, Aaron David Gordon, and of course Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. Albert Einstein also supported the Socialist approach on Zionism.
- 27.
In the modern era, 2020, the time of this writing, “liberalism” connotes socialism, or communism, or being a “progressive.” At the time of Jabotinsky’s writing, it was more akin to what we know today as libertarianism. Although this is now changing. The leftists have so besmirched “liberalism” that they have been forced to shift gears. They now take refuge in the nomenclature “progressives.”
- 28.
For more on Jabotinsky, see Kremnitzer and Fuchs (2013).
- 29.
See Maps 5, 10, 11 and 12 in Annex A.
- 30.
As Daniel Pipes and Adam Garfinkle (1988) explain on this regard: “In March 1921, Winston Churchill, the colonial secretary, found it ‘necessary immediately to occupy militarily Trans-Jordania.’ Rather than use British troops to do this, he decided to control it indirectly. Toward this end, Churchill divided the Palestine Mandate into two parts along the Jordan River, creating the Emirate of Transjordan on the east bank and excluding Jewish immigration there. Churchill offered this territory to Faisal’s older brother Abdallah, who after some hesitation accepted. The Hashemite dynasty of Abdallah, his son Tallal, and his grandson Hussein has ruled Transjordan (or Jordan, as it was renamed in 1949) ever since. After March 1921, the east bank was no longer Palestine”.
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Block, W.E., Futerman, A.G. (2021). Zionism. In: The Classical Liberal Case for Israel. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3953-1_2
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