Jews are the chosen people. God promised us the land of Israel, the only place we can truly be safe.
These were among the ideas drilled into me at an early age in Hebrew School, a program of afternoon and weekend education operated by many synagogues. I jettisoned this thinking during my teens as I embraced libertarianism. But I seem to be in the minority of Jewish libertarians, most of whom are trying to support Israel within a libertarian framework. I see it as an impossible task.
Zionism is the belief in a Jewish state, so it is clearly at odds with the Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist flavor of libertarianism which rejects any kind of state. But Zionism is also challenged from a minarchist perspective because it implies an established religion, Judaism.
Minimal state libertarians often draw inspiration from American founders such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who strongly supported the separation of “Church” and State. The First Amendment starts by stating that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Although Israel’s Declaration of Independence called for “complete equality of social and political rights for all its citizens irrespective of religion,” a page on the Knesset website stated that the Declaration “is neither a law nor an ordinary legal document”. This may be why Arab Israelis lived under a harsh form of martial law between 1949 and 1966.
Despite controlling the West Bank since 1967, Israel still has not given its Palestinian residents equal rights, not just with respect to voting but also to freedom of movement. Perhaps that could be justified based on the West Bank being occupied territory, but that rationale breaks down when we see that illegal Jewish settlers (some of whom immigrated from overseas and some of whom converted) receive full citizenship. The disparate treatment by religion cements the idea that Israel is closer to a theocracy than an enlightened, classically liberal society.
Most American Jewish libertarians do not make the trip to the West Bank, so you’ll have to take my word for it: what I saw there in 2018 cannot be confused with libertarianism. When I visited, I could not get over the number of plastic bottles filled with urine soldiers drop from the border wall in Bethlehem and settlers drop from their apartments onto the Palestinian market in Hebron.
And that’s just one highly visible abuse: the travel restrictions, property seizures, and exposure to periodic settler violence are undoubtedly more impactful on West Bank Palestinians’ daily lives.
But aren’t they all a bunch of terrorists who deserve to be treated harshly? The Palestinians I met treated me just fine despite knowing that I was Jewish. And, of course, there were all the young children and babies, who have had no chance to commit acts of terrorism during their short lives.
Penalizing individuals that have not acted aggressively because of their group identity is not a practice I recognize as libertarian. Nor is the mass killing of non-combatants in Gaza, Even Israeli sources admit 16,000 civilian deaths in Gaza, more than a dozen times the number Hamas killed on October 7.
And, no, I do not believe a semi-accurate set of ancient texts that said God promised “Judea and Samaria” to the Jews. Indeed, as an Ashkenazi Jew, I have no idea whether my lineage traces back to ancient Israel even if it could be traced.
We have no right to take land based on our religion or our wholly unverifiable ancestral claims. Instead, it is the refugees in Gaza who still have the keys to their family homes in “Israel proper” that have a clearer right to reclaim stolen land.
As the war drags on, the pro-Israel libertarian must indulge in increasingly complex rationalizations or simply ignore facts. Why were the World Central Kitchen workers killed? Why were Israelis blocking aid trucks going into Gaza? Why is there no ceasefire even after the IDF has invaded every section of Gaza?
You can make all the claims you want but they don’t stand the tests of fact, logic, and principle. Israel is an aggressive theocratic state that is inconsistent with libertarian principles. For Zionist libertarians the time has come to choose: you can be one or the other, but not both.
